The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has called for an early policy notification for facilitating sourcing of power from green sources for charging of Electric Vehicles. This is especially required at the standalone charging point level. Currently, it is not feasible under the ambit of prevailing electricity regulation where a minimum of 1 MW load at the point of consumption is needed to avail power under Open Access. No charging station, save few developed as hub, would be requiring power of this order at one location during the initial 10 years. It is, therefore, prudent to lower the threshold of open access for sourcing power from the green sources like solar.
Industry bodies including CII have been seeking such policy measures which were reflected in various state EV policies where they articulated for encouraging power supply through Open Access. However, without having enabling rules framed under statute, implementation would be difficult. Taking cognizance of such need and demand, the Union Ministry of Power came out with a draft notification on 16th August 2021 titled “Draft Electricity (promoting renewable energy through Green Energy Open Access) Rules, 202” seeking comments from various stakeholders.
The draft Rule provides for lowering the threshold for sourcing power from Green Sources to 100KW. This is the need of the hour and would catapult the transition of transportation from fossil fuel based to green electricity. CII urges the Union Ministry of Power to finalize the Rule as more than six months have elapsed. It would be one concrete step towards meeting goal under “Panchamrit declaration”.
India demonstrated tremendous commitment during the Glasgow COP26 Summit where Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid out “Panchamrit” agenda for India. The goal is to make India carbon neutral and achieve net-zero emission by the year 2070.
Globally, transportation and power generation together account for more than half the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. To decarbonize power generation, the world is trying to move towards an energy mix with high percentages of renewables-based energy. India has set itself a target of installing 500 GW of renewable-based energy capacity by the year 2030 majority of those would be coming from solar and wind which are variable in nature and, therefore, need to be balanced with storage capacity.
Against this background, electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as an important element of strategies aimed at reducing emissions from the transportation sector, and also aid in decarbonizing power sector by providing much needed storage capacity through its batteries. EVs have no tailpipe emissions as well as least life cycle Green House Gas (GHG) emission amongst various power train-driven vehicles even with the current mix of energy in the grid which is getting greener day by day.
New Delhi
21 March 2022