Just Energy Transition – Maharashtra: Coal Challenges, Sunny Solutions
(Adopted and summarised from iForest's report: Just Energy Transition in Maharashtra: An Opportunity for Green Growth and Green Jobs)
Namaste Everybody!
This week and for the coming few weeks, Saturday Spectrum will explore “Just Energy Transition” (JET). This concept is crucial for several traditional businesses and emerging economies.
Energy Transition refers to the transition from Fossil Fuels to greener and more environmentally sustainable energy solutions such as Solar, Wind and Hydro (in smaller capacities), leading to net zero emission economy.
ILO (International Labour Organisation) defines “Just Transition” as “Greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned, creating decent work opportunities and leaving no one behind.[1]”
Just Energy Transition (JET) in our view then, is a fair and inclusive transition of energy industry from fossil fuels to renewable energy with the aim to achieve net zero emissions.
We take inspiration from two factors:
Europe’s Carbon Border Tax: Over the last 2 years we are seeing enquiries and action coming from steel, cement and other hard-to-abate sectors. These industries have nothing to do with solar industry as part of their business. They don’t quite mind where their electricity comes from as long as it is regular, uninterrupted, and inexpensive. But with the carbon tax threatening their business in Europe, these sectors are now increasingly looking to Arbutus Consultants to help them make their transition to cleaner sources of energy. All the big names in the metal industry is planning on investing several Gigawatts of solar power.
iForest[2]: International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST) is a think tank that conducts independent evidence-based research for new knowledge and solutions. In its recently concluded conference, in Mumbai, released a report on Just Energy Transition in Maharashtra: An Opportunity for Green Growth and Green Jobs[3]. It brought together participants from several stake-holders organisations. It helped us widen our horizon from an energy focus to a social one and to other opportunities.
This week we shall briefly explore the report from iForest on the same. We encourage RE developers, specifically Solar Developers to give this report and the other works from iForest a look.
The focus is Maharashtra.
Maharashtra has the third largest number of factories in India. And it accounts for 10% of the country’s annual emissions at 31 crore tons of CO2e (310 million tons). The emissions have been growing at a CAGR of 4.1% since 2011-12.
5 sectors account for 66% of the emissions in the state. These are:
1.?????? Thermal Power Plants
2.?????? Road Transport
3.?????? Iron and Steel
4.?????? Cement
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5.?????? Brick
The table below presents the hotspots and challenges of some of the major sectors with a significant impact on the state’s transition pathway.
Table 1: Sectors with significant impact on Maharashtra's Just Energy Transition Pathway
There are opportunities in each sector. Electrifying their current technologies is among the earliest of them. That seems to be a wide-spread suggestion in most industries. From brickmaking to auto industries, electrifying the technology or the process seems to be a highly preferred first step.
We will list some of the opportunities below:
Table 2: Opportunities in Transition across Industries in Maharashtra
At Arbutus Consultants Pvt Ltd. we are exploring ways to assist our clients’ decarbonization journey. We have partnered with specialists in the green buildings and energy efficient HVAC systems to assist in the reduction of electricity and energy needs.
With about 2 decades of advisory and engineering experience over 30+ GW of renewables, Arbutus Consultants Pvt Ltd. could be your partner of choice in your renewable energy journey. Please reach out to us at [email protected] to find out how we may be of assistance.
[2][2] https://iforest.global/
Director, Just Transition @ International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST)
9 个月Hello Arbutus Consultants Pvt Ltd. Thanks for tagging us. But we would appreciate a better reuse of the information. IKnowledge is certainly to share, and we all learn from each other in a knowledge economy. But this is not how it should be done. In any analysis, if you just borrow the information, you should mention data and information as "adopted". Hope you will follow it for professional purposes.