“Electricity requirement will increase up to 6.8 times in the next 50 years”

Gandhinagar

Electricity requirement in India will increase up to 6.8 times in the next fifty years. This is what former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Govt. of India, Prof SP Sukhatme said at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) on Monday, (March 30, 2015). Prof Sukhatme who is also a Distinguished Honorary Professor at IITGN was speaking on – “Estimating India’s Future Needs of Electricity”.

Prof Sukhatme said, “In order to improve the standard of living in India, in the next 50 years, it will be necessary to increase the value of the mean annual per capita consumption of electricity from the present value of 800 to 900 kWh to around 4000 kWh. This need will correspond to an annual requirement of about 6800 tWh of electrical energy.”

Emphasizing upon the need for frugal use of electricity the prof Sukhatme said that days of plentiful and cheap energy are over. He said, “When the population of the country stabilized at 1700 million after 50 years, the energy demand will increase by 6.8 times of what we produce today. Even if the population used energy frugally the demand will increase by 3.12 times. Installation of every megawatts of electricity costs between rupees 5 to 15 crores.” India has installed capacity of producing around 250000 MW of electricity at present.

On the high cost of harvesting renewable energy, prof Sukhatme said that fluctuation and intermittency in energy output from the renewable sources is the main challenge. Prof Sukhatme said that renewable sources of energy will become a significant contributor to energy needs and it will be then the issue of intermittency will be strongly felt. He said, “These are issues which no country has sorted out. “

Prof Sukhatme also pointed out that electricity and fresh water will be two big issues in the country in the future. “These two ‘key words’ will determine the future of the country,” he said.

-DeshGujarat