India’s Energy Security at the Macro and Micro Levels

India’s energy security is at crossroads. It has a multitude of choices—in terms of energy carriers, procurement sources, supplying options, end-use activities, etc. This chapter addresses two main challenges with respect to India’s energy security. First, since energy security needs to be accomplished at both at the micro (household) and macro (societal) levels, it is a challenge to have a framework that can assess energy security at both levels. The chapter proposes one such energy security assessment framework, which is a composite measure of energy availability, affordability, and acceptability. The study demonstrates how the framework can be operationalized at a household as well as in larger unit levels: from a village level to the level of a country. Second, the chapter discusses one of the major dilemmas affecting India’s energy-related decisions: the trade-offs between renewable and non-renewable energies. It analyses how this dilemma is negotiated by different stakeholders: households and national level. The chapter concludes with three policy trade-offs to steer through these dilemmas to ensure energy security both at the household and country level.