Integrated analysis of increased bioenergy futures in India

Abstract

India is committed to increase its use of renewable energy to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The country has an overarching goal of installing 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030. Bioenergy can play an important role in the energy mix by balancing the seasonal and hourly power demands that may be unmet by intermittent renewables. Ensuring the sustainable production and consumption of bioenergy are key to meeting India's bioenergy targets. Here, using GCAM, future bioenergy pathways in India are modeled to understand four important dimensions of sustainability: water availability, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and land use change. It is found that a higher demand for bioenergy crops cause an increase in water demand and creates a competition for land that forces crop production to move to basins with higher growing capacity, causing concerns for food security in the future. However, with investments to improve water use efficiency in the agricultural sector, capacity goals can be reached by 2030 with minimal food-energy-water impacts. Finally, with the development of ample supply chains to incentivize the harvesting, processing, and transportation of agricultural residues for bioenergy, many of the potentially negative impacts from bioenergy crop expansion can be alleviated.