Digital Transformation vs Energy Transformation

Launched in October 2010 secured one million registered users in two months, and 10 million in a year.

ChatGPT took only two months to gain 100 million users.

Transformations at lightning speeds happen only in the digital space.

It took the automobile and tractor nearly 50 years to dislodge the horse from farms, public transport and delivery in the North America. And the transition was anything but smooth. Same is true for energy transition. Biomass used to be a huge energy source back in the 1800’s, with usage up to 98%. Later, coal, oil and petroleum came in with biomass still having some 10% share in the mid 2000’s.

The world has been setting ambitious and tough targets in the new energy space. Solar, Wind, Electric, Hydrogen to name a few. Government of India launched the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 in year 2013 and later the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME) scheme in 2015. Electric cars accounted for just 1.3 percent of car sales in 2022, that is, 49,800 EVs sold out of 3.8 million passenger vehicles. The numbers are better with two and three wheelers. But we still have a long way to go.

To gain market traction, you need affordability, reliability, and competitiveness

The pieces of the puzzles all need to fall in place, capital spending, new supply chains, new technologies. This becomes even more tougher for the transformation to take off, when technology is still evolving, with interdependencies and a huge landscape and ecosystem involved and is not limited to app or a user group.

For something like green hydrogen usage to gain traction would require understanding the end user requirements (like cost, breakeven, range for hydrogen powered vehicles) enablers like support and encourage for localisation of big-ticket items, like hydrogen compressors for example, will complete the puzzle.

What is happening right now is, people have solutions, and they are trying to find a problem to fit the solution into. Many of us are not interested in defining the problem but are busy offering solutions, Hydrogen, Ammonia, Methanol, fuel cells, hydrogen fuelled turbines and what not.

As per Energy Outlook from BP, for India, electricity generation in 2050 is more than and four times compared to that to 2022. McKinsey’s Global Energy Perspective 2023 forecasts global electricity demand to more than double from 25,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) to between 52,000 and 71,000 TWh by 2050, due to the growth in emerging markets’ energy needs and electrification across the economy.

This is the area that needs to be addressed priority, bottlenecks eliminated, decisions to be made, interventions to be taken, policies to be brought in. Otherwise the EV’s will still pollute, the hydrogen, ammonia or methanol will not be green. As per Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Electricity Sector remains the biggest consumer of Raw Coal and Lignite in India with this sector consuming as much as 64.07% of the total consumption of coal and84.46% of total consumption of lignite in India in 2020-21.The industry sector accounted for the highest share of energy consumption across India in fiscal year 2023, at 42%. Another issue is that India’s electricity generation is more carbon-intensive (713 grams CO2 per kWh) against the global average of 480 gCO2/kWh.

Going further, electrolyser capacity may need scaling thousands of times by 2050, green hydrogen production would need huge power, infrastructure for storage, transport, pipelines for short distance transport, long distance transport by shipping..

Yea, they say Rome was not built in a day. But we do not have the luxury the Romans had. True, things do not happen overnight.. The Climate Clock is ticking.

Lets hope we can stop the timer in time before catastrophes strike.. and there are so many right wires and wrong wires. We need to cut all the right wires.

Opinions expressed are personal