Fossil Free: Reimagining Clean Energy In A Carbon Constrained World
By
Sumant Sinha
Reimagining A Cleaner, Greener, Carbon-Free World
The current global energy use, with its overwhelming dependence on fossil fuels, has taken global warming to dangerous levels. Climate change is already hitting us hard, through adverse effects on global food availability, biodiversity, rising sea levels and extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and floods. In the last decade, a major transformation – the transition to clean, affordable and sustainable energy from the sun and wind – is beginning to address these challenges.
Fossil Free provides a concise introduction to the challenges, realities and complexities of the global and local energy industry, as well as the trends and forces driving the energy transition. It explains how improved energy infrastructure, decentralized smart grids, electric vehicles, energy storage and market design are already providing clear pathways for the transition towards green, efficient, affordable and secure renewable energy across the energy-use chain: extraction, conversion, transmission, distribution and end use.
For over a decade, Sumant Sinha has had a ringside view of the energy scenario. Having founded and helmed India’s leading clean energy company, his understanding of the global energy landscape and climate change brings a unique, holistic perspective on energy. With Fossil Free, Sinha shares his vision for energy which is not only clean, but also practical and affordable.
About The Author
Sumant Sinha is an entrepreneur in the clean energy sector. He founded ReNew Power ten years ago, and under his leadership the company has become India’s leading clean energy company, supplying more than one per cent of India’s total electricity and mitigating half a per cent of India’s carbon emissions every year.
Before ReNew, Sumant had a varied corporate career, both in India and overseas. He studied at IIT Delhi, IIM Calcutta and Columbia University, USA. He works closely with varied entities such as WEF, CII and the Climate Group on energy and environment issues. He is a role model for clean energy entrepreneurs and is a passionate advocate for climate change solutions.
Praise for Fossil Free
‘This book illuminates how India, an emerging economy that is home to 1.3 billion people, can lead the world in responding to the existentialist threat of the climate crisis. Sumant Sinha captures the unique challenges and opportunities for implementing clean energy solutions. In doing so, he presents a compelling roadmap to a better, cleaner future for India – and other developing regions of the world’
Al Gore, Nobel Laureate and former Vice President of the United States
‘Our addiction to fossil fuels is at the core of the climate change crisis. Today, devastating impacts of climate change are showing up across the world – from blazing fires to intensification of cyclones. This is why this book, written by a practitioner – someone who is deeply involved with the renewable energy business – is a must read. There is too much at stake today. So, read it and learn how we can change our common future. Together.’
Sunita Narain, Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi
‘Climate change is at the cusp of irreversibly damaging our planet. Sumant has put together an essential book on framing the problem and providing the solution – on how markets, entrepreneurs, and policymakers can come together to solve this crisis. We owe it to future generations to read this book and act on it.’
Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group
‘A bold vision of a clean energy future for India from the man who transformed the country’s renewable energy industry.’
Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director, International Energy Agency
‘A must-read, this book is a great chronicle of the ongoing Indian energy transition, one of the momentous occurrences of our times. And that it is written by Sumant Sinha, who is at the centre of the transition, makes it deeply fascinating as well.’
Ajay Mathur, Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute
‘A compelling book by a visionary leader. Sumant Sinha offers practical steps to solve the climate crisis, drawing on his experience founding and running India’s largest renewable power company. This book offers lessons that can make a difference around the world for years to come.’
David Sandalow, Inaugural Fellow, Centre on Global energy Policy, Columbia University; former senior official, The White House, State Department and U.S. Department of Energy
‘Few books have impressed me as much as Sumant Sinha’s Fossil Free for its uniqueness, impact, effectiveness, vision and perspective. This book is insightful, thought provoking, superbly researched and deftly crafted. A must read for all those who envisage a new world of clean energy and zero emission mobility.’
Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog
‘Humanity’s future must be fossil free if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change, but plentiful energy is essential to prosperity and growth. The good news, brilliantly set out by Sumant Sinha, is that renewable electricity and other technologies now provide a clear route to affordable zero carbon energy for all. Sinha combines historical perspective and scientific understanding with the pragmatic insights of a successful business leader. The result is an important, compelling and exciting descrition of an attractive future, for India and the whole world.’
Lord Adair Turner, Chair, Energy Transitions Commission
Foreword by Klaus Schwab
Climate change is the defining issue of our time. But our fight against the climate crisis won’t be won by worrying about it alone. We need to understand what causes it, and what we must do about it. In Fossil Free, Sumant Sinha does just that: he traces global CO2 emissions and pollution back to two past energy transitions, and shows how we can enact a ‘third energy transition’ towards a carbon-light future.
In his book, Sumant first points out the two great energy transitions of the past, which largely coincide with what I call the First and Second Industrial Revolution. They gave us the industrialized world as we know it, including abundant coal-fired power, the internal combustion engine and, of course, incredible leaps in wealth and prosperity. But they were equally responsible for a divergence in development across nations, and increase in global inequality, and – in this context, most importantly – an acceleration of climate change and environmental pollution.
As Sumant shows, however, there is good news on the horizon: we can achieve a third energy transition, characterized by clean and renewable energy. It could give economies a much-needed boost, and contribute to a more sustainable future. That transition, in fact, is already underway: the world is adding more clean energy on to the grid today than ever before; global investments in clean energy assets touched nearly $300 billion in 2019, and an ever-increasing number of investors, action groups and governments favour ‘clean’ over ‘coal’.
But to succeed, this transition must be lead by Asia, which houses two thirds of the global population and is responsible for half of global GDP. More particularly, India and China must lead the way. Just in the past few years, these two rising global economic powers have become responsible for most of the world’s new coal-fired plants. Seen from where they are in their energy transition, it makes sense. India had a late start to previous industrial revolutions, and had some catching up to do on power generation. Coal plants provided a straightforward option.
As Sumant shows, countries such as India can also choose another part. Through a combination of individual entrepreneurship, institutional investments and the right incentives in government procurement, he writes, ‘growth in renewable and cleantech in India can be a huge opportunity and certainly place the country in the top three in the world over the next several years’. That would mean they could become leaders, rather than latecomers, in the new energy transition.
To a certain extent, that transition is already taking place. Since 2014, the Indian government has strongly emphasized the need to move away from coal-based electricity capacity in the tendering processes. But to tip the balance further towards green power, it must be favoured not only where it is most cost-effective, but also where it adds most long-term value to economy and society. Green power projects combine the creation of new jobs and long-term benefits including the reduction of carbon emissions, thus better air quality and improved human health.
Everyone in India – and every reader of this book – has an incentive to get this right. If India would rely squarely on fossil fuels to power its continued economic rise, it would only add to the global climate crisis. Surely, this is not a crisis India initiated. That questionable honour is for the most industrialized nations in the West. However, India’s actions will, together with those of other (rising) powers, shape the world over the next hundred years. By taking the lead, India can not only pave the way for itself but provide a model for the rest of the world to replicate and solve the climate crisis.
Climate action is still too often perceived as a cost or a trade-off with other priorities. It should be instead viewed as an opportunity for businesses, countries and individuals to create an advantage in building a better, more sustainable world. This book puts this principle into practice and provides an important roadmap. I am looking forward to seeing its recommendations play out in the years ahead.
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, September 2020.
The Indian Playbook
There are several elements which India needs to work on as part of its climate change and energy aspirations playbook.
Nifty Policymaking
Central to progress and competing with many other countries in this area, are sound policies. We need to ensure that the quality of policymaking is of an extremely high standard. For example, Indian bureaucrats are very effective when they get clear directions, but tend to hesitate when that clarity does not exist. For this, politicians and the government of the day have to set and drive the agenda. For example, the PM set a very clear target of 175 GW of RE by 2022 and the whole policy establishment has worked very hard to get behind it. Had this target not been there, we probably would not have had the same level of urgency and achievement orientation.
Similarly, for batteries, the departments involved are NITI Aayog, Ministry of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Road Transport, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Renewable Energy and Ministry of Power. It is not clear who is the final authority to push the storage and EV agenda, with the result we do not have the required effectiveness of action. Similarly, given India’s federal structure, the central and state governments with differing priorities, are not always on the same page and, therefore, policies get diluted or delayed. The safeguard duty for solar panels is an example of this. There has been little benefit to manufacturers but a lot of heartburn for the IPP industry. This has to improve as policymaking is the crucial bedrock for all other developments.
An Efficient and Flexible Grid
Such a grid must be built-out in time for all the new renewable energy that needs to come in, and in the areas where we have the best natural resources. Overall grid management also needs to improve such that more renewable can be absorbed more easily. We need better demand-response systems, ancillary services, storage markets, net metering, forward markets for power, etc.
Efficient Utilities
As stated earlier, inefficient utilities or ones that are poorly staffed will never be the bedrock around which the sector modernizes and becomes carbon lighter. We need faster moving, better managed, financially stronger utilities governed by a transparent and effective regulatory system which is truly independent.
Manufacturing Independence
We need more of the supply chain in India. We cannot have a situation where we import renewable, such as $5 billion worth of solar panels and $10 billion worth of batteries every year. We will merely be replacing our energy dependence from the Middle East to China. Even if the cost is a little higher initially, the energy markets in India should absorb that cost to develop a manufacturing industry locally.
We can easily have a 10 GW wind manufacturing industry in the country (already exists but is stressed financially), a 15 GW solar panel industry and a 20 GW battery manufacturing industry in the country. This itself will lead to significant job creation, reduce our geostrategic dependence on China, and lead to more R&D and investments in India over time.
Faster EV Roll-Out
We must move the transportation sector faster towards electric mobility. Specific and ambitious targets should be set for how many EVs we want to see on the roads every year, along with cumulative targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050. We must also incentivize the setting up of charging stations on petrol pumps and other public places. Again, policy plays a crucial role in this area.
‘Hard To Abate’
In the so called ‘hard to abate’ sectors dealing with industrial applications particularly around heating, solar thermal solutions are possible and must be encouraged. Again, specific and stiff RPO targets must be set for the industrial sector and implemented over any objections from the impacted industries.
Energy Efficiency
This is a critical area that we haven’t spoken about much in this book. However, better standards for appliances – particularly for air-conditioners, further distribution of LED bulbs, demonstrating through pilot plants the kind of savings that are possible – could move industrial and residential customers towards better efficiency through a mix of cajoling, demonstrating, and the settings of standards. Here the Indian Bureau of Energy efficiency has to play a key role.
Deepening Electrification
By doing all the above, we could have a situation where, by 2050, India increases the electrification of its energy consumption from a quarter to closer to 60-75 per cent. Along with that, we could have a situation where, through a mix of renewable and storage solutions (which will be by far the cheapest sources a few years from now) a majority of the electricity supplied in carbon-free; where a large part is being generated closer to the consumer; and where batteries in EVs are part of the overall grid storage. Given the evolution of technology, and manufacturing and implementation costs, this is eminently doable. It is certainly not a utopian dream and requires firm and clear policy action, along with significant private sector investments and actions.
Disseminate And Take Global Leadership
Lastly, once this playbook is well developed, India needs to take the lead is disseminating and implementing this across the world.
The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is a very positive step on the part of the Indian government in that direction and it can be a good vehicle to take India’s ideas and new energy constructs to the world. India can become the beacon that drives this energy transition to a carbon-light future so that climate change is mitigated without compromising on growth and development for a large part of humanity.
Conclusion
In summary, the climate change problem is real and needs to be addressed forthwith. We are already some way towards the two degree centigrade temperature change. Current global efforts do not give us any comfort that we will be able to stay within this guardrail. While efforts are being by several countries, multilateral agencies and individuals, there are equally enough countries that are voting for politicians who do not believe that climate change is a priority.
Therefore we need to look for solutions that are based on commercial logic and market push rather than policy intervention. Renewables – with their lower cost and application flexibility at the utility scale, retail and off-grid levels – offer one such solution. But other areas such as energy efficiency and storage also need to develop in parallel. In addition, whether we like it or not, given that the power sector is a legacy system going back several decades, with somewhat ossified regulatory frameworks, utilities and people, it needs to change and that change requires enlightened policy intervention.
This is not easy for policymakers used to a slow-moving and slowly changing technology environment. They are now faced with rapidly changing relative dynamics between different types of generation, sources of power that are intermittent in nature and that require niftier policymaking which itself changes in response to changing inputs. This job is not made any easier due to the increasing complexity on the demand side, with a number of areas moving towards electrification such as transportation through electric vehicles. Storage may provide a solution as its cost reduces over time.
For makers of Indian policy another conundrum remains on the manufacturing versus cost trade-off front. A solution needs to be found for this and properly implemented. Other potential issues constraining the growth of renewables are grid development and distribution company reforms, both of which are essential.
If these issues are tackled robustly, growth in renewables in India can be a huge opportunity and can certainly place the country in the top three in the world over the next several years. The Indian electricity sector could be one of the biggest infrastructure investment opportunities anywhere in the world over the next several decades. While this will by itself not fully address climate change issues, it will nevertheless help developing countries like India follow a different, less carbon-intensive path than others who have traversed the development path before us. In that respect, irrespective of where other countries are n their development paradigm, India can and should become a beacon for enlightened, carbon-light growth.
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