A Brief Review on Conventional and Renewable Power Generation Scenario in India

Abstract

AbstractIndia is a country having a population of over 1.38 billion with a population share of over 17.7% of the global population. It is facing a massive challenge in providing consumers with sufficient energy supplies at an affordable cost. In the present scenario, the power sector is like a commodity market, electricity must be economical and reliable. Since major part of the generation is from fossil fuels, it emits nitrogen, sulfur and carbon oxides (Garg in Journal of Sustainable Energy & Environment 3:7–17, 2012). Due to increased population and limited fossil fuels in India, it becomes essential to adopt renewable energy generation. The contribution of renewable energy generation in 2002 is 0.34 GW (Nagamani et al. in Electric Power Components and Systems 43:1205–1213, 2015), which is 2% of the total installed capacity of the country (17 gigawatts). The contribution of renewable energy generation touched 85.9 gigawatts (23 percent) of 373.4 gigawatts by 2020. India secured the third place in renewable energy generation in the world. This article provides a brief overview of conventional and renewable energy generation scenario in India and discusses various government policies and initiations to promote renewable energy generation.KeywordsConventional energyRenewable energyGovernment policies