India's power agency sees peak demand of 335GW by 2030

India's Central Electricity Authority (CEA) sees domestic electricity demand peaking at 335GW in the April 2029-March 2030 fiscal year, 45pc higher than its 230GW estimate for 2022-23.

It also sees domestic electricity demand reaching 2,279.6TWh in 2029-30 compared with the government's estimate of 1650.6TWh in 2022-23.

The CEA sees the growth in power demand mostly coming from the renewable segment, it said in a report released on 4 May. The government aims to achieve 500GW of installed renewable capacity by 2030.

Fossil fuel-based or thermal power capacity, which includes units that run on coal, lignite, gas and diesel, accounts for 58pc of India's overall installed generation capacity of 416GW, with coal alone making up over 50pc of the total and gas forming only around 6pc.

India aims to replace 30GW of thermal power generation capacity with renewable energy by 2026, in a move aimed at reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants. India's renewable energy capacity is currently at 125GW, lower than the target of 175GW by 2022 and well below the 2030 target of 500GW, according to the power ministry.

Installed capacity of solar photovoltaics (PVs) is set to be the highest at 292.6GW by the end of the decade from an existing 66.78GW, an over threefold rise (see table), while the CEA sees installed wind capacity rising by 134pc.

The government had last year directed 81 thermal power plants to reduce coal-fired generation and offset the decline by adding solar power. The exercise is expected to cut coal usage for power generation by 34.7mn t/yr and reduce carbon emissions by over 60mn t/yr, according to India's power ministry.

The CEA sees installed hydropower capacity increasing by 28pc to 53.9GW, and that of pumped storage plants rising to 19GW by 2030 from the existing capacity of 4.75GW.

The increase in renewable and hydropower generation also comes as the government is aiming to increase the share of non-fossil fuel installed capacity in power generation to 64.4pc by 2030, having already achieved 41pc as of March this year.

But carbon emissions from the power sector are predicted to be slightly higher at 1.11bn t by 2029-30 from 1bn t in 2021-22, the CEA document said. The average emission factor is likely to reduce to 0.477kg CO2/kWh net by 2029-30, it added.

Installed capacity of coal and lignite will remain in second place by 2029-30 at 251.7GW, up by 19pc from the existing capacity of 211.9GW because of abundant availability of domestic coal in the country, a shorter gestation period and lower capital cost of coal-based plants compared with hydropower and nuclear plants.

The CEA sees installed capacity for nuclear power generation rising by 128pc to 15.5GW by 2029-30, while installed capacity of gas will remain stable at 24.82GW.

It expects gas-based power generation to remain weak because of a slowdown in production from the Krishna-Godavari (KG)-D6 basin, adding that significant gas-based capacity is presently stranded because of a lack of availability of domestic gas and high costs of imported LNG.

RIL expects natural gas production from the KG-D6 block to rise to 30mn m³/d over the 2023-24 fiscal year, accounting for 30pc of India's overall gas production and 15pc of the country's gas demand, as it plans to commission the MJ deepwater gas fields during the April-June 2024 quarter. India produced 34bn m³ of natural gas in 2022-23, oil ministry data show.

By Rituparna Ghosh

India's power generation capacity	(GW)
Resource	Existing capacity	Likely installed capacity in 2029-2030	% change
Hydro	42.1	53.9	27.9
Small hydro	4.9	5.3	8.2
PSP	4.7	19.0	300.0
Solar PV	66.8	292.6	338.1
Wind	42.6	99.9	134.3
Biomass	10.8	14.5	34.2
Nuclear	6.8	15.5	128.3
Coal+Lignite	211.9	251.7	18.8
Gas	24.8	24.8	0.0
Total	415.5	777.1	87.1
Source: Central Electricity Authority

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