[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by gkveda

I can only think this thread has to be in Official Jokes thread.

I agree.

Along with Cashless India. Or Smart Cities. Or Clean India. Just slogans distracting everyone away from the ground realities across the length and breadth of the country.

We will have e cars in garages, charged by DG sets running next to them. And landfills that are more toxic than ever before.

IMO, other than something happening that reduces our headcount to less than half of what it is today, the only answer is an order of many magnitudes improvement of public transport. And things like Uber. Accompanied by a drastic increase in the cost of running private transport. But as was done in the demonetisation tamasha, the latter will be done without the former in place.

[hkollar]

Originally Posted by mayankk

This is another joke.
To go all electric, you have to develop the electrical infra. That means government spending. That means just 30-40% of the outlay will be translated into actual metal and concrete. That pushes the the "2030" deadline to god knows where.
Germany says 2030, I believe. They're already onto renewable energy, AND they have surplus.
India in 2030? Impossible. Just another "project proposal". I dont think either Maruti or Hyundai is scared right now.

India gets 30% of total energy from Renewables now (as on 30th April 2017).

India is a net power deficit country right now, but it will overcome this deficit as new capacity is added. Most of the new capacity is coming by way of renewable and nuclear. It's coal powered plants are currently only running at 60% of capacity (due to lack of coal), and that too will bridge some gap.

India will go electric because, electricity will be the 'cheapest' form of energy. Not natural gas, not LPG, not petrol or diesel. The only obstacle right now is the price of electric cars. If the cars with 300-400km range on single charge drops down to regular petrol car range, then fossil fuel car technology is dead.

Think of running your mobile phone with a tiny, smoking generator at its top!!

Originally Posted by mayankk

The second most populous country in the world demands electricity right now. What has that demand done so far?


So it has set up an avenue of supply. what has it changed for the changu mangu like us who are still on aux power. Mind you, thats in the "developed" bits of the country. Heaven help you in the rest of the country.

Demand was not catered to by stupid govts. But, current govt has a dynamic power minister who is reforming the sector and also focusing on fulfilling demand. We can see the results already. India power deficit is about 1% now... http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/58155906.cms

But, there are challenges.

1. Coverage of all villages is not yet done. They hope to have that done by 2022. This will lead to even further enhancement of demand, thus more capacity is being built.

2. Our power distribution companies are inept, corrupt. Lot of power is lost in transmission, thus reforming distribution is the way to reduce power tariff. This is being attempted, but as roof top solar prices drop - some of these issues may go away.

Roof-top solar with electric cars (that can store power) can begin a virtuous cycle. Almost free energy to run your cars (and perhaps your homes) will change the way we think of energy in a decade.

[Sawyer]

Where in your opinion is the constraint in having a car with a solar panel on top of it so that it can run for free once the purchase price is paid? Obviously, you think these constraints will disappear in just ten years, so I am very curious to know what you think these are.

[octane_100]

IMO, the date 2030 is just a wish list, nothing more nothing less. India may become power surplus soon but somebody should do the math on how many vehicles get sold every year, their cumulative running and the kWh equivalent of the same and then see if we can produce enough electricity to meet that demand!

Also, EV's don't have tail pipe emission which is great for the local environment. But what about battery production and disposal? What about power generation? Saying that nuclear is a "clean fuel" is oxymoron with the kind of risks involved, which have been reminded by the Fukushima disaster.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by hkollar

India gets 30% of total energy from Renewables now (as on 30th April 2017).

India is a net power deficit country right now, but it will overcome this deficit as new capacity is added. Most of the new capacity is coming by way of renewable and nuclear.

India will go electric because, electricity will be the 'cheapest' form of energy. Not natural gas, not LPG, not petrol or diesel. The only obstacle right now is the price of electric cars. If the cars with 300-400km range on single charge drops down to regular petrol car range, then fossil fuel car technology is dead.

Think of running your mobile phone with a tiny, smoking generator at its top!!



Roof-top solar with electric cars (that can store power) can begin a virtuous cycle. Almost free energy to run your cars (and perhaps your homes) will change the way we think of energy in a decade.

Thank you for sharing facts on this thread. Too many comments here are of the 'I am frustrated with this country; nothing ever gets done here' type. Our electricity situation is due to a certain culture of Govt we suffered from around 1964 to 2014 under all parties. Many states in India are now power surplus and I believe given the steps being taken power will be a thing of the past in 5 to 7 years and cheaper too. We Indians like to berate ourselves and up to a point that is healthy. Let's step back and view how far the country has come.

In 1973 to '77 I have personally stood in long queue's to collect kerosene from ration shops as it was the only cooking medium in mid-sized towns. In the mid-80's when we married I was still an employee and not self employed. My wife and I approached our respective company employers for help with LPG cylinder and a phone. My employer got us the LPG on a 'priority' basis (don't ask how) in rocket speed time of 2 months. My wife's employer got us the landline phone within 2 years - and we thought that was jolly good. Today we live in a large vibrant economy. Some things don't work well - power, traffic, low cost housing, vocational training etc but on the whole the nation is headed in the right direction. The two things I would worry about fixing are water supply and primary education. In 13 years a lot can happen - cell phones came to India in 1996 just think what was the spread usage and cost drop by 2009. M800 came in 1985 (or so) just think how the industry had attracted world OEMs by 1998. Airline deregulation came in 1991 with new private airlines commencing operations; just think how much had changed by 2004 and how cheap air travel is today compared to 1991. It is a source of optimism for me that we are talking (or grumbling) about whether there will be enough power to fuel electric cars.

In 1969 when I started reading newspapers the big issues of the day were famines, dire shortage of wheat, whether the green revolution would succeed, nationalization of banks and Mr Mahalanobis leading the Govt to control (and effectively penalize) companies that invested big sums into creation of manufacturing infrastructure (the MRTP Act). How to adequately power plug-in electric cars is a high class problem.

2030 may be ambitious but we need a vision and a target to work towards and that's what it is. In 1984 when India decided to build a nuclear submarine the Navy told then PM Indira Gandhi that it will take 30 years. Her answer was, "in that case Admiral we have no time to lose". That is vision. 30 years later we have designed and built our own nuke sub. Lets watch this space in 2030. Even if half the personal vehicles are electric/hybrid by then it will be a laudable achievement.

[skdking]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

....
In 13 years a lot can happen - cell phones came to India in 1996 just think what was the spread usage and cost drop by 2009. M800 came in 1985 (or so) just think how the industry had attracted world OEMs by 1998
.....

Agree in toto on all other issues that you raised.

However regarding cellphones, I sometimes wonder why this telecom revolution happened the world over.

Today the cellphone penetration in a country like Pakistan is of the same order of the Indian one. Ditto for Bangladesh.

Also, I know not what to make of the stupendous performance of African nations in this field.

Does it only mean that our Mittals etc are no great shakes. They just happened to be there. If not them then someone else would have done it.

Same for our governments. No one can claim credit.

It was simply an idea whose time had come.

[Sawyer]

While it is correct that 30% of our installed capacity is from renewables, more than half of that is from old fashioned hydro, which does not look to be growing as rapidly as all other sources, perhaps because there aren't that many more large dam projects that can be implemented. So the pioneering renewables that are growing - seem to be wind and solar, in that order, and totalling to just about 15%, or half of the total renewables. Solar is less than 4% of the total installed capacity today, and while that will undoubtedly grow faster than other sources except perhaps wind, I don't see the advent of cars running on solar panels on their roofs in even 15 years. The tech just isn't there to reach that kind of performance. It would be lovely if it was, I have no doubts on that score!

But here is the other problem in India with published data, which can be very impressive on the face to it. Installed capacity of all kinds grew from 86000MW in 1997 to 133000MW in 2007. Not too bad. But grew to a very impressive 326000MW by March 2017 if the published data is to be believed. Along with claims that we are power surplus to the extent that installed capacity is now idle for want of demand not having caught up with that growth.

How come then I still see, in Pune, extended power cuts on Thursday, in continuation of the staggered power cuts imposed for over thirty years now because of power shortages? Industrial units in the region have had to have Thursday as their weekly off for decades now because of this and I see no change in that. This apart from the frequent outages that necessitates installation of standby DG sets and inverters in every apartment complex. Every Thursday the DG set still runs for 8-10 hours and occasionally on other days, and in general DG sets/inverters/UPS is even today a fast growing sector in India.

Given this, how to get the surplus into the batteries of electric cars may be a "high class" problem, but that isn't to say there are any signs on the horizon of a robust solution to that being visible where it matters - on the ground across the length and breadth of the country. Assuming that the surplus is real and not just on paper in ministries. And the other problem with the domestic supply is the quality of power, with high fluctuations in voltage and frequency; anyone with expensive electronics is well advised to have online UPS protection to obtain designed service life from their investments. And one reason why Indian manufacturing struggles to be globally competitive because it takes an expensive CPP to support any decent sized manufacturing plant. The utility power supply simply cannot be relied on for power that is reliably available and of the quality that will not damage sensitive industrial equipment.

Like every other problem in India, the solution also has to happen at the grassroots as well for it to gain usable traction. The mobile phone industry boomed because it did not depend on government made and managed on the ground infrastructure to work; operators put up towers with DG sets to do business. Business which also arose in the first place because government miserably failed in its self appointed tasks in the telecommunications sector.

Energy is a much bigger challenge because no one seems to be making any progress anywhere in transmitting it wirelessly to the end use points. And point of use generation is still very inefficient. So unless there is real progress in dramatically improving distribution including the last mile parts of it, in reaching everywhere and being robust in all the places where it reaches, the results will remain patchy and unreliable.

PS: Mittal and others have done a phenomenal management job, one must give them full credit. A job that people like Tatas/Birlas were not able to do as well. And competition from Vodafone and the like kept every one alert and afforded consumers the necessary choices.

[mayjay]

Well a lot of the discussion here seems to focus on the current problems with the power availability and the feasibility of having adequate power to serve electric automobiles.

This overlooks the fact that the power situation is surely improving and in the near term with availability of solar power at cheaper rates, the problem will no longer be about a gap in supply vs. demand, it will be more in terms of what to do with conventional sources of power since the solar is only available during the day time. There are various projects under way to try to overcome this particular problem and I am sure solutions would be found soon. Battery banks / and use of electric cars connected to the grid are some examples.

I believe that more important will be infrastructure to support the electric cars, by way of charging stations. Without these, the cars are unlikely to see widespread adoption. Potential buyers will always be concerned about getting stuck with a depleted battery in the middle of nowhere. The same concern could exist with normal fuels, however, one can simply go to a pump, get a refill and move on.
This is the key issue which Tesla has decided to address from Day 1, with the focus on supercharging stations. These run on solar energy and pretty much act as cheap sources of power. Something similar would have to be implemented in India. Thirteen years is a short time for these to be built out, but it has been done in the past. CNG pump infrastructure was built out in a similar timeframe, and this in some ways is less complex.

The government has provided a vision and now it is up to the industry participants to help achieve it. SIAM for a change needs to take this up in a progressive way. For too long they have been faffing and cribbing about one or the other issue, e.g. Bharat 6, where they keep citing constraints to bringing new technologies even after getting 4-5 years advance notice.
They need to organize and come up with some standards for electric cars to ensure inter-operability and the common use of all infrastructure.

For those that are not convinced, yes, it has never been done before. Which is exactly why it makes sense to strive for it. How many places can India truly say that we were the first in the world? This is something that not even China has dared to dream of doing.
Even if we don't get there by 2030, by reaching for the stars, at least we would have settled for the sky!

[Sawyer]

I don't have a problem with reach for the stars visions. But the problem with any vision, be it for a business or for a nation is that unless it is well connected to detailed actionable plans that involve the front lines fully and has deliverables there with time and cost targets to it, that are rigorously monitored to completion, there is no difference between visions and dreams.

Dreams can also come true without all this, but that is no credit to the dreamer.

The government sector is not well known for action biased visionaries; there are of course some exceptions like the man - I forget his name - behind Konkan Railway/Delhi Metro. But these have been very rare in India.

The only way I can be convinced of these visions is when I see things happening in the locality where I live/work. So far, none of the grand ones has delivered an ounce of visible benefit even though I live in a locality that is selected to show the way ahead for Pune to become one of tom tommed smart cities. It has actually led to more chaos because of ill conceived road concreting that now has the electricity supply people claiming is coming in the way of reliable power supply, while the continued operation of the water tanker mafia boggles the mind. Garbage collection is patchy to non existent. Those that are sorry that their cities did not make the cut to be nominated to be a smart city, should be grateful instead.

[ksameer1234]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

How come then I still see, in Pune, extended power cuts on Thursday, in continuation of the staggered power cuts imposed for over thirty years now because of power shortages?

Sorry to digress, but I am living in Pune for 3 months now and have not experienced any load shedding. Yes, the power availability is not 24x7 like Mumbai but whenever power goes, it comes back in less than 15 mins. I am not sure which localities are experiencing power cuts.

Assuming that the surplus is real and not just on paper in ministries.

The surplus is very real. Thermal power plants are running at worryingly low levels of PLF due to falling demand. Gas based plants are on the verge of shutdown. We actually need to adopt EVs very fast because even after paying 10-15 rupees per kWh for power, running EVs will be cheaper than petrol/diesel ones. This itself would be more than enough to rejuvenate the faltering power sector.

Originally Posted by gkveda

If at all, there are battery bunks(Like Petrol bunks), where we can recharge the batteries on highways, and if there is a long queue for recharging, just think of time spent in those bunks during long journey

A very feasible solution is to have banks of super-capacitors which get slowly charged and then dump all their charge to vehicle in a flash. This has already been proposed by ABB.

ABB’s flash charging technology permits a bus to be recharged in only 15 s. Furthermore, this occurs at bus stops at which the bus needs to stop anyway, meaning schedules are not negatively affected.

Because a 400 kW draw during flash charging can pose a challenge for the local electricity grid, the charger station uses super capacitors to flatten out the current peak and reduce the load on the grid.

[dark.knight]

Let me remain on the side of the pessimists, and no that neither makes me anti-national nor anti-progress, I'm just anti-politics and hate the verbage and talks of a grand scheme of things that are decades away.

People have reflected on their respective cities and so I shall as well - Bangalore which was the first city in India to get electric power (the first bulb was lit here in the nation) has since always suffered from power shortages, sure they make do on a monthly basis by borrowing power from the central grid and somehow by tweaking the power supply with a few scheduled cuts now and then.

Its unimaginable what would happen if the city faces a sudden surge of demand in power via the plug for the vehicles (Bangalore is 2nd only to Delhi with 4.1 million vehicles), imagine if 100% of the vehicles stood in line to suck the power from the grid. I am not buying this and I'm certainly not jumping aboard this grandiose plan for now.. people are ignoring the posts that have talked about the ecological toll to produce batteries which require change in 5-6 years for every vehicle, BTW, production of chemicals i.e lithium and the toxic chemicals/acids are on an all-time high and have made the areas mined for them as toxic, unlivable, and a total wasteland.

We're not naysayers, we just want to see balance in what happens on earth, every action has ecologically-destructive consequences.. the key is to think 10 times before moving forward.. the ecological toll to scrap every fuel-burning car in India will do 100 times the damage than if they were to remain, the key is slow transition over 30-40 years, ensuring that every purchased vehicle gets their time in the sun. Will be happy to provide dozens upon dozens of links to those who want to know more via PM or if allowed, here as well (don't want to come off as overly pessimistic, you see).

[ksameer1234]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

I'm just anti-politics and hate the verbage and talks of a grand scheme of things that are decades away.

I believe a start has to be made somewhere and that the reason horse-carriages made way for cars was not because horses went extinct.

Its unimaginable what would happen if the city faces a sudden surge of demand in power via the plug for the vehicles

Currently, the challenge that government faces is to generate demand for power plants which are operating at poor load factors.

the ecological toll to scrap every fuel-burning car in India will do 100 times the damage than if they were to remain, the key is slow transition over 30-40 years, ensuring that every purchased vehicle gets their time in the sun.

I don't suppose power minister intends to say that every petrol/diesel vehicle on road will be scrapped come 2030. A vehicle sold in 2029 would very well continue to run till 2044 at minimum. It is just that 2030 onwards, the scale will tip in favour of EVs. Also, petrol/diesel vehicles would continue to sell but may be only in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by ksameer1234

Sorry to digress, but I am living in Pune for 3 months now and have not experienced any load shedding. Yes, the power availability is not 24x7 like Mumbai but whenever power goes, it comes back in less than 15 mins. I am not sure which localities are experiencing power cuts.

I am now in Baner, and have lived in Pune since 1962, so I do know a little about Pune. And I know that much of Pune loses grid power for extended hours on Thursdays, and industrial units still cannot have a Sunday holiday. On which subject, a news report:
"The practice of Thursdays off has been existence since the Pune plant became operational in the 1960s and stemmed from the power outage because of load-shedding and maintenance closures.

Such outages still happen on most Thursdays, but the plant now functions with adequate captive power generation capacity, though at a higher cost."

The plant referred to is TML moving to a Sunday holiday as a HR measure.

My problem in general with the politicians is that their mouths run much faster than their hands. First deliver power in a reliable manner for all existing uses/users of it, then talk of new uses like electric cars. But that will mean too much effort so no one wants to go in that direction. Instead, they are happier with sound bites and snappy slogans. Not all of us are fooled by this behaviour.

[Sawyer]

A few years ago, I was the head of marketing for a large DG set making company; I thought it would be interesting to see what is happening to that market now in the light of this Diwali that is being spoken about where we can start using electric cars because power plants are idle.

And I am not surprised to find reports that say that in the next 5 years the DG set market in India will double in size from that today: http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...16---Forecasts

I am all for a war on the IC engine because it is inefficient and polluting, and much more so where it is deployed at the point of use. But why is this war not first being undertaken on the diesel engines that power most of the gensets referred to in the report? And on the many thousands that are already running in India driving the installed base of DG sets?

Visible success in doing this by robust and reliable distribution of power will pave the way for the future adoption of electric cars, while also addressing the alleged PLFs of power plants in India - two birds with one stone. Why go after engines on the move in automobiles when there are so many stationary engines installed and to be installed in ever growing numbers as indicated in the report that can first be targeted, that do not need a new charging infrastructure to be built? All are and will be connected to the existing grid, after all. And all pollute the same air in the same cities that aren't healthy places to live, largely because of IC engine emissions. If I was the power minister, i would take this report as a slur on my capability and do something to prove it completely wrong by 2020. For a start, by not allowing the market to grow at all by making the buying of DG sets much less of a compulsion than it is today. And to eliminate the use of all DG sets, by 2025.

The simple answer is that because this is very hard to do, it won't be done; because the effort has to reach and be sustained all the way to the other end of the energy distribution chain. It can't be done via diktats from Delhi, or by catchy slogans.

[vinit.merchant]

Originally Posted by ksameer1234

Sorry to digress, but I am living in Pune for 3 months now and have not experienced any load shedding. Yes, the power availability is not 24x7 like Mumbai but whenever power goes, it comes back in less than 15 mins.

Originally Posted by Sawyer

And I know that much of Pune loses grid power for extended hours on Thursdays, and industrial units still cannot have a Sunday holiday.

Worthwhile to note is that in case of private connections, the outages have reduced with the PMC, for corporate/industrial connections the situation remains bad. I know this because my home and office are 2 kms apart and while on some Thursdays, there is no outage at my home, I find the DG's running in my office complex for hours.
It obvious that the charging points connection type will be residential/private.

Also keep in mind that the infra to distribute electricity is quite old and not something which will be looked into when thinking of change. And till date, whenever there is a heavy shower, I have experienced outage, ranging from 15 min to even a few hours.
So reliability will be a huge -ve while going for EV's.

The effects of battery components on climate & how less or more they are as compared to fossil fuel can be a different discussion altogether.