4th India Energy Forum CERAWeek: PM Calls For Greater Reliance On Domestic Sources To Drive Bio-Fuels

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday delivered the inaugural address at the 4th India Energy Forum CERAWeek through video conference. The theme of this edition is “India’s Energy Future in a World of Change”.

“India is full of energy and its energy future is bright and secure. He elaborated that in spite of various challenges like fall in energy demand by almost one third, prevailing price instability, impacted investment decisions, projected contraction in global energy demand over the next few years, India was projected to emerge as a leading energy consumer and is projected to nearly double its energy consumption over the long term,” an official statement quoted the PM as saying.

Other highlights:

• India is the third-largest and the fastest-growing aviation market in terms of domestic aviation and Indian carriers are projected to increase their fleet size from 600 to 1200 by 2024.
• India believes that access to energy must be affordable and reliable.  That is when socio-economic transformations can take place.
• India’s Energy Plan aims to ensure energy justice while fully following the country’s global commitments for sustainable growth. This means more energy is needed to improve the lives of Indians with a smaller carbon footprint.
• Interventions such as distributing more than 36 crore LED bulbs, reducing the cost of LED bulbs by 10 fold, installing over 1.1 crore smart LED street-lights in the last 6 years have enabled an estimated energy savings of 60 billion units per year, estimated greenhouse gas emission reduction of over 4.5 crore tonnes of Carbon dioxide annually and monetary savings of around  Rs. 24,000 crore annually.

The Prime Minister said like the seven horses driving the chariot of Sun god, India’s energy map will have seven key drivers.

1.  Accelerating our efforts to move towards a gas-based economy.

2.  Cleaner use of fossil  fuels  particularly petroleum and coal

3.  Greater reliance on domestic sources to drive bio-fuels.

4.  Achieving the renewables target of 450 GW by 2030.

5. Increasing the contribution of electricity to de-carbonize mobility.

6. Moving into the emerging fuels including  hydrogen

7.  Digital innovation across all the energy systems.