[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by vinit.merchant

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.

Of course it is old. But that is all the more reason for attention to that end of the supply chain instead of just adding capacity at the other end. Unless that is done, we will be left with under utilised grid capacity and low PLFs, be they coal/nuclear/wind/solar on one hand, and polluting/inefficient DG sets running at point of use on the other, because the supply chain is broken and unreliable.

Unfortunately, the mobile phone solution and the DTH TV solution that do the last mile wirelessly isn't an option here. Solar will help to an extent, but even installed on a large area such as the roof of a home/apartment, needs contribution from the wired grid as well to supplement what can be generated at the point of use.

There is also the problem of inefficient/corrupt distribution via state governments, but that too needs to be fixed for these dreams to become realities.

[mayjay]

There are a lot of thoughts on this thread around why this is not possible. While it is not right to overlook practical issues such as poor distribution networks, these cannot be stumbling blocks they are being made out to be.

The key to this idea is to think of cars as an appliance. How many ACs are sold in India? Around 4 million.

How many passenger vehicles sold? Around 3 million.
An AC runs for a day - consumes around 50 units. Okay so nobody runs it for entire day, but let us take that assumption. A car requires 70 units to charge (assuming something like Tesla P85 which has a 85kwh battery and factoring in for 10% losses, and the fact that it doesn't get fully discharged, etc.)

If all cars sold this year were to be electric, the total consumption would be 76.6 bn units. The same demand from ACs sold this year would be 73 bn units.

So there is only a doubling of demand (from ACs) .. that's not so bad. Obviously this number scales up over next few years, but then there are 13 years to go.

The solutions to these problems need to be found .. yes, but with some concerted effort, it looks doable.

[Sawyer]

In Pune, I use an AC, only at night, for just 2 months in a year. I use my car every day. The math fails there assuming your other numbers are correct, based on this usage pattern which isn't rare. And the AC often runs on DG set power. If that is how electric cars will be charged for a lot of their use, there is little point in them. The point isn't setting up power capacity, it is about having it reliably available at charging points everywhere.

Everything is doable with concerted effort, but I don't see any plans for all the concerted efforts beyond the nice sounding vision statements that will be needed for this to happen. It is the same story with clean India or anything else on those lines I keep seeing lots of words about. There has been no change in the cleanliness of Pune smart city in the last 3 years except in many places it has become dirtier.

[mayjay]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

In Pune, I use an AC, only at night, for just 2 months in a year. I use my car every day. The math fails there assuming your other numbers are correct, based on this usage pattern which isn't rare.

I live in Gurgaon, where it is hot 9 months of the year and I have to use my AC. On the balance, Pune is probably an exception and India is a hot country. And it is getting hotter every year. Never having run the AC in my car in winter, this time I had to start using it in February.

But this is not the point - we are each most comfortable with, and aware of, our immediate surroundings and know them best. Numbers may be up or down, and I don't deny it.
The point is that the order of magnitude is not too different. Which is why it is quite feasible to accommodate this electricity demand, at least in the medium term.

Originally Posted by Sawyer

And the AC often runs on DG set power. If that is how electric cars will be charged for a lot of their use, there is little point in them. The point isn't setting up power capacity, it is about having it reliably available at charging points everywhere.

Completely agree that reliable charging infrastructure needs to be set up. This is not very difficult. Already there are dedicated feeders that make sure that VIP zones in most cities do not undergo power failure; airports too get preferential power. In the end the problem may be more about commercial viability than distribution reliability.

Originally Posted by Sawyer

Everything is doable with concerted effort, but I don't see any plans for all the concerted efforts beyond the nice sounding vision statements that will be needed for this to happen. It is the same story with clean India or anything else on those lines I keep seeing lots of words about. There has been no change in the cleanliness of Pune smart city in the last 3 years except in many places it has become dirtier.

The power sector in India has come a long way in the past 10-12 years. There have been many reforms in various states. And I am not referring to any particular political dispensation. Thousands of crores have been spent by the Centre, states and funding agencies such as DFID, ADB, World Bank.
Distribution reforms are the most difficult, there has been progress here too, with T&D losses coming down over a period of time. Is it complete? Certainly not. Is there a long way to go? Mostly yes.

One thing is clear, we have to move forward. Can't keep the inadequacies of the present denying us the potential of the future. I therefore appreciate the vision, with some targets being set. It is also for industry and people at large to take lead from and make their own contributions. At least we are talking about it. This is a start. People with capability to contribute - Mahindra, Musk and the likes are talking about it. That is a start. From these conversations will come solutions.

Anyway, that's probably the last from me. I would now like to leave it to others to share their views on this topic.

[maddy42]

I have to agree with Sawyer in this debate. My family comes from coorg which is a rural district. In 2015 we did have a 1 month power cut during the rains. When the matter came to fixing the main line, the two departments of electricity and the forest dept fought for a month as the main line ran through the national park.

The goal is great but the implementation on the ground level is pathetic in many state discoms.

One more example:
Our only mobile network is BSNL. Jio may have offers but the network will not run in our house area. So BSNL exchange which is like 4 kms from our house has bad infrastructure and the diesel for the gensets are usually not available. This basically results in the technicians turning off the towers at night and internet is usually shut by 8pm. Complaints at the local level heeded no response, so finally i had to contact the Minister of Telecom to get the guys in our district to work. Irony but true. My complaint got a lot of them in a hot seat.

Am i optimistic. Kinda! Will i think 100% electric by 2030 is possible? Not really.

I just hope all the cities in our country get 100% electricity first 24/7 then i will look at this goal. Till then "ache din aane wala hai"

Maddy

[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by maddy42

I just hope all the cities in our country get 100% electricity first 24/7 then i will look at this goal. Till then "ache din aane wala hai"

My point exactly. Icing on a half baked cake can only be a flop in reality; can't build a palace on a foundation barely adequate for a middle class house or worse.

And I am quite happy to accept that the generating capacity to deliver the objective mentioned above is there already, regardless of who uses the AC for how long. The problem is that we are not getting its benefit, while there is moaning and groaning about this capacity not being utilised.

Therefore, the back up DG set market will keep still doubling every five years as it has for the last ten-twenty years or more. A colossal waste of resources that also adds to the pollution load that no one seems to be bothered about. Because it is easier to look to future technology to fix problems that no one wants to work hard to address. No amount of tech can replace the need for sincere, honest and hard work to keep supply chains humming in every sector. Just like clean India has to happen at the ward/village levels on a daily basis; not with broom wielding ministers that want to build their image every time it needs polishing before they move on to the next PR exercise.

[maddy42]

Also in other news: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/59008598.cms

4600MW of power supply may end up being nonviable due to pricing issues.

Maddy

[Sawyer]

Some insights into the mobile phone business as well, that I obtained being part of their supply chain, that is propped up by gensets my company supplied/serviced and I suspect, still does.

Almost every cell phone tower outside metros and all of them in rural areas have a small DG set as standard tower equipment. A tower installed a couple of years ago across from my apartment has one as well. Grid power is either not always available, or not reliable. And neither is diesel. So there is a huge task of supplying diesel to these towers and keeping the DG sets operational; little is known of the hard work that happens on a 24/7 basis in this supply chain that allows the mobile network to be as reliable as it is. And obviously, we pay for this in our cell phone bills.

All of this is needed because of government's inability to do work themselves - but work that is less challenging physically - of keeping the grids functioning properly, and of keeping the distribution organisations out of bankruptcy. If the private operators like Mittal etc. had not done ALL it takes to be successful and if they had allowed themselves to be tied to the power infrastructure provided by the government at a huge cost to all of us, mobile telephony would never have taken off in India.

Who will do this for the electric car dream? Anand Mahindra? Give me a break. Musk perhaps?!

Something else for the slogan shouting ministers to reflect on while claiming credit for the power situation in the country. What has happened has almost entirely happened in spite of their efforts, not because of them. For every NTPC there are many state government run organisations that are dysfunctional. And it is no use the Centre pointing fingers to the state governments; that is a political reality in India that central ministers have to be able to manage as part of their job description.

Here is an Alice in Wonderland scenario: Charging stations, with back up or full time DG sets depending on location, to replenish the batteries of all the electric cars running on the roads across the length and breadth of India. Not impossible in an India that can see this: Buying of Scorpio kind of vehicles in rural areas that have the money but not the grid power, to be able to sleep in air conditioned comfort in the hot summer afternoons - not cheaper than buying an AC and a DG set for the house, but more convenient to top up the diesel tank by driving the "unit" to the outlet. And with the added advantage that it can be used as a car when it isn't so hot. This isn't a joke, it was happening in Maharashtra a few years ago to my personal knowledge. I don't know if it still does, but it would not surprise me if it does. Is it a surprise that some of us are cynics?

[fuelinmyveins]

I just don't understand what's the fuss all about.

Why is that if someone has an intention to accomplish a task we are always bogged down by just focusing on other related things that need improvement.

I live on the outskirts of Gurgaon (so called nightmare for power), a casual glance on my electricity​ bills over last one year reveals average DG usage to be less than 2% (can upload the bills if someone does not believe). The situation was even better in Delhi.

See my moot point is that in metros even if the electricity is provided for 75% of the time (worse estimate) it's still more than enough to charge your car (not that a person will keep on charging his car 100% of time)

So following are requirements for a more sustainable future, which I feel are being met:-
1. Political and social will.
2. Massive investment in sustainable and clean energy.
3. Availability of technology at present.

So in the end what I'm saying is that we can't keep on waiting for fixing one scenario 100% before moving forward for next one. All challenges need to be tackled simultaneously.

Till 2030 even if half of the cars shift to electricity, it will be a major achievement that everyone would be proud of.

[sgiitk]

Noble thought, but I do not think we will get the required infrastructure in place. All the best, Mr Goyal. Keep it up.

[mpksuhas]

While availability of power is one issue, my issue with electrical vehicles is with the source of power generation. (mentioned here )

Going electric may be the right direction, however along with that there we should have cleaner & reliable power generation and supply too.

[manishi01]

While going all-electric seems like a viable goal, but there are still 13 years in between and more than 159 million registered vehicles (as of 2012) on Indian roads!! About 54,000 new vehicles are registered every day in 2015 and the year saw addition of 19.4 million new vehicles registered in the Indian market. This number is only going to go up. So, until then should we continue to live with ever-increasing pollution of millions of vehicles?

I wonder if we should wait until 2030 to go completely electric. Currently, there are very few electric or hybrid options, however. Lack of charging infra is often cited as a reason for this lack of options. Another reason is the cost, and general lack of awareness about electrics as easier to maintain cars.

I am sure if there was a cheap way to convert existing vehicles to electric, there would be takers. Much like what happened with CNG conversions, retrofitted hybrids could also be a viable options - not only to provide a cheaper fuel alternative, but also to ease ever increasing pollution in our cities. Such hybrids could be used for 'city-only' commutes; for highways, there's always the gas engine. Folks will figure out a way to get the charge, much like they learnt to queue up at CNG pumps initially.

I wonder why there are no visible efforts by companies, entrepreneurs, government agencies to come out with electric conversion options. Bolt-on electric kits on existing petroleum powered vehicles could be an important measure towards a fully-electric future. There would be various challenges on this in-between 'hybrid' path, such as creation of a eco-system of parts and kits for different models, and initial testing of such kits on Indian roads. These are some challenges worth overcoming. Sure this hasn't been tried in a big way elsewhere, so India could be a pioneer in this context.


Inspired from an older post on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/futur...-manish-sharma

[Porcupine]

The only real viable way of doing this would be that by 2030, companies can only sell electric vehicles and not petrol/diesel vehicle. What would then happen, is that there would still be regular vehicles around, but once they get scrapped that's that. Of course, this is given that in the next 13 years they manage to put the infrastructure in place.

[Sawyer]

Another point that needs to be made is that electric cars are no solution to the road congestion that gets worse every year in every city - for driving as well as for parking owned cars.

Should there first be the massive upgrading of public transport infrastructure everywhere that is the only solution to this problem, allied to creation of jobs in a way that reduces migration to the cities? And as this is done, the use of private cars inside city limits should be discouraged via financial disincentives. Or should investments be made/allowed toward charging stations for electric cars?

The easy answer is to say both should be done; unfortunately there are no easy answers given the size of the problems the country faces.

And surplus power generating capacity, if it exists in reality, should be used to first curtail the growth of the DG set market and then towards their elimination by making them unnecessary.

And of course, Indian Railways needs to be 100% electrified; no diesel electric locos.

[subuiyer]

The last time I looked the government was earning lakhs of crores in taxes on hydrocarbon fuels. I suppose they also have a plan to compensate themselves for the loss of that income.
If they end up taxing electricity and fossil fuel prices crash then there may not be enough incentive for public to go for electric vehicles. Of course all this is based on simple assumptions; never know it may all work out.