IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v162y2020i4d10.1007_s10584-020-02885-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

India’s energy sector choices—options and implications of ambitious mitigation efforts

Author

Listed:
  • Ritu Mathur

    (The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI))

  • Swapnil Shekhar

    (The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI))

Abstract

This article examines the choices that might be needed for India’s energy sector under alternative mitigation scenarios. The article draws on the CD-LINKS study—a collaborative EU project under which seven pathways based on different combinations of carbon budget (high and low) and policy implementation (early and late) were developed and examined. This study uses the MARKAL energy system model to develop these scenarios. The three broad strategies that emerge for India include decarbonisation of electricity, electrification of end-uses and improvement in energy efficiency. We conclude that by undertaking early action, India can potentially prevent carbon lock-in and leapfrog to renewables from coal in the power sector. However, early action scenarios exhibit higher cost than their delayed action counterparts. Several other barriers and challenges also need to be addressed in order to enable large-scale uptake of low-carbon technologies. India may need to come up with innovative mechanisms to ensure a smooth and just transition for the economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritu Mathur & Swapnil Shekhar, 2020. "India’s energy sector choices—options and implications of ambitious mitigation efforts," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(4), pages 1893-1911, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:162:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s10584-020-02885-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-020-02885-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-020-02885-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-020-02885-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Srinivasan, Shweta & Kholod, Nazar & Chaturvedi, Vaibhav & Ghosh, Probal Pratap & Mathur, Ritu & Clarke, Leon & Evans, Meredydd & Hejazi, Mohamad & Kanudia, Amit & Koti, Poonam Nagar & Liu, Bo & Parik, 2018. "Water for electricity in India: A multi-model study of future challenges and linkages to climate change mitigation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 673-684.
    2. Shukla, Priyadarshi R. & Chaturvedi, Vaibhav, 2012. "Low carbon and clean energy scenarios for India: Analysis of targets approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(S3), pages 487-495.
    3. Gupta, Dipti & Ghersi, Frédéric & Vishwanathan, Saritha S. & Garg, Amit, 2019. "Achieving sustainable development in India along low carbon pathways: Macroeconomic assessment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Michel Elzen & Annemiek Admiraal & Mark Roelfsema & Heleen Soest & Andries F. Hof & Nicklas Forsell, 2016. "Contribution of the G20 economies to the global impact of the Paris agreement climate proposals," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 655-665, August.
    5. P. R. Shukla & Subash Dhar & Diptiranjan Mahapatra, 2008. "Low-carbon society scenarios for India," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(sup1), pages 156-176, December.
    6. Lucas, Paul L. & Shukla, P.R. & Chen, Wenying & van Ruijven, Bas J. & Dhar, Subash & den Elzen, Michel G.J. & van Vuuren, Detlef P., 2013. "Implications of the international reduction pledges on long-term energy system changes and costs in China and India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1032-1041.
    7. Gambhir, Ajay & Napp, Tamaryn A. & Emmott, Christopher J.M. & Anandarajah, Gabrial, 2014. "India's CO2 emissions pathways to 2050: Energy system, economic and fossil fuel impacts with and without carbon permit trading," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 791-801.
    8. Viebahn, Peter & Vallentin, Daniel & Höller, Samuel, 2014. "Prospects of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in India’s power sector – An integrated assessment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 62-75.
    9. Krey, Volker & Guo, Fei & Kolp, Peter & Zhou, Wenji & Schaeffer, Roberto & Awasthy, Aayushi & Bertram, Christoph & de Boer, Harmen-Sytze & Fragkos, Panagiotis & Fujimori, Shinichiro & He, Chenmin & Iy, 2019. "Looking under the hood: A comparison of techno-economic assumptions across national and global integrated assessment models," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 1254-1267.
    10. Parikh, Kirit S. & Parikh, Jyoti K. & Ghosh, Probal P., 2018. "Can India grow and live within a 1.5 degree CO2 emissions budget?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 24-37.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chakraborty, Sankhadeep & Dwivedi, Prasoom & Chatterjee, Sushanta K. & Gupta, Rajesh, 2021. "Factors to Promote Ocean Energy in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jiang, Jingjing & Ye, Bin & Liu, Junguo, 2019. "Research on the peak of CO2 emissions in the developing world: Current progress and future prospect," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 186-203.
    2. Shivika Mittal & Jing-Yu Liu & Shinichiro Fujimori & Priyadarshi Ramprasad Shukla, 2018. "An Assessment of Near-to-Mid-Term Economic Impacts and Energy Transitions under “2 °C” and “1.5 °C” Scenarios for India," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-17, August.
    3. Gupta, Dipti & Ghersi, Frédéric & Vishwanathan, Saritha S. & Garg, Amit, 2019. "Achieving sustainable development in India along low carbon pathways: Macroeconomic assessment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Daniel Johansson & Paul Lucas & Matthias Weitzel & Erik Ahlgren & A. Bazaz & Wenying Chen & Michel Elzen & Joydeep Ghosh & Maria Grahn & Qiao-Mei Liang & Sonja Peterson & Basanta Pradhan & Bas Ruijven, 2015. "Multi-model comparison of the economic and energy implications for China and India in an international climate regime," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 20(8), pages 1335-1359, December.
    5. Steve Pye & Christophe McGlade & Chris Bataille & Gabrial Anandarajah & Amandine Denis-Ryan & Vladimir Potashnikov, 2016. "Exploring national decarbonization pathways and global energy trade flows: a multi-scale analysis," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(sup1), pages 92-109, June.
    6. Pan, Xunzhang & Ma, Xueqing & Zhang, Yanru & Shao, Tianming & Peng, Tianduo & Li, Xiang & Wang, Lining & Chen, Wenying, 2023. "Implications of carbon neutrality for power sector investments and stranded coal assets in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    7. Johansson, Daniel J. A. & Lucas, Paul L. & Weitzel, Matthias & Ahlgren, Erik O. & Bazaz, A. B. & Chen, Wenying & den Elzen, Michel G. J. & Ghosh, Joydeep & Grahn, Maria & Liang, Qiao-Mei & Peterson, S, 2012. "Multi-model analyses of the economic and energy implications for China and India in a post-Kyoto climate regime," Kiel Working Papers 1808, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. Vaillancourt, Kathleen & Bahn, Olivier & Frenette, Erik & Sigvaldason, Oskar, 2017. "Exploring deep decarbonization pathways to 2050 for Canada using an optimization energy model framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 774-785.
    9. Kainuma, Mikiko & Shukla, Priyadarshi R. & Jiang, Kejun, 2012. "Framing and modeling of a low carbon society: An overview," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(S3), pages 316-324.
    10. Mittal, Shivika & Dai, Hancheng & Fujimori, Shinichiro & Masui, Toshihiko, 2016. "Bridging greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy deployment target: Comparative assessment of China and India," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 301-313.
    11. Chris Bataille & Henri Waisman & Michel Colombier & Laura Segafredo & Jim Williams & Frank Jotzo, 2016. "The need for national deep decarbonization pathways for effective climate policy," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(sup1), pages 7-26, June.
    12. Vaibhav Chaturvedi & Priyadarshi Shukla, 2014. "Role of energy efficiency in climate change mitigation policy for India: assessment of co-benefits and opportunities within an integrated assessment modeling framework," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 597-609, April.
    13. Laha, Priyanka & Chakraborty, Basab, 2021. "Cost optimal combinations of storage technologies for maximizing renewable integration in Indian power system by 2040: Multi-region approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 233-247.
    14. Gambhir, Ajay & Napp, Tamaryn A. & Emmott, Christopher J.M. & Anandarajah, Gabrial, 2014. "India's CO2 emissions pathways to 2050: Energy system, economic and fossil fuel impacts with and without carbon permit trading," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 791-801.
    15. Viebahn, Peter & Vallentin, Daniel & Höller, Samuel, 2015. "Prospects of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in China’s power sector – An integrated assessment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 229-244.
    16. Vaillancourt, Kathleen & Bahn, Olivier & Roy, Pierre-Olivier & Patreau, Valérie, 2018. "Is there a future for new hydrocarbon projects in a decarbonizing energy system? A case study for Quebec (Canada)," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 114-130.
    17. Lucas, Paul L. & Shukla, P.R. & Chen, Wenying & van Ruijven, Bas J. & Dhar, Subash & den Elzen, Michel G.J. & van Vuuren, Detlef P., 2013. "Implications of the international reduction pledges on long-term energy system changes and costs in China and India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1032-1041.
    18. Ashish Gulagi & Manish Ram & Dmitrii Bogdanov & Sandeep Sarin & Theophilus Nii Odai Mensah & Christian Breyer, 2022. "The role of renewables for rapid transitioning of the power sector across states in India," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, December.
    19. Kumar, Pankaj & Banerjee, Rangan & Mishra, Trupti, 2020. "A framework for analyzing trade-offs in cost and emissions in power sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    20. Zhang, Kai & Lau, Hon Chung & Bokka, Harsha Kumar & Hadia, Nanji J., 2022. "Decarbonizing the power and industry sectors in India by carbon capture and storage," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:162:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s10584-020-02885-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.