Editorial 1 : With a little help from the sun
Introduction: There is a private sector-led revolution underway to lift 500 million people out of energy poverty. The transformation is thanks to clean energy mini-grids that are popping up in rural communities across Asia, Africa, Latin America and Small Island Developing States and, in the process, serving many small businesses and households.
What is mini grid?
- A mini grid, also sometimes referred to as a "micro grid or isolated grid", can be defined as a set of electricity generators and possibly energy storage systems interconnected to a distribution network that supplies electricity to a localized group of customers.
- They involve small-scale electricity generation (10 kW to 10MW) which serves a limited number of consumers via a distribution grid that can operate in isolation from national electricity transmission networks.
Benefits of mini-grids
- Private sector owned and operated solar mini-grids are the most cost effective and sustainable way to bring electricity for the first time to 75 per cent of the 675 million people worldwide who still live in darkness, most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- As per the World Bank, 20,000 mini-grids have been installed to date, and $220 billion is needed to build the 2,10,000 mini-grids required to achieve these targets.
- Solar mini-grids are displacing the default energy source for rural communities — expensive and polluting diesel generation — at a fraction of the cost and with immediate environmental benefit.
- But besides delivering reliable and clean power to these unserved communities, mini-grid companies are also offering a range of other services that drive rural prosperity — mobile telephony, irrigation, agro-processing, e-mobility, to name a few.
- They also provide sales and financing of appliances that are otherwise unavailable. In other words, these are not merely electricity utilities providing power, they are rural development accelerators.
- Clean energy directly provides high-quality energy services, it can also enable other livelihood activities — they also provide opportunities in the healthcare and agriculture sector.
- Decentralised energy systems like solar mini-grids are also emerging as an important answer to climate shocks like drought, heat stress and flooding.
- This adaptation and resilience capability of mini-grids is critical for farming-dependent rural Africa and Asia, which are the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions.
- The mini-grids also offer an important complement to the centralised grids.
Indian and solar mini-grids
- In India, about 700 solar mini-grids are owned and operated by a handful of private companies that, unlike state-run mini-grids, are unsubsidised and commercially viable purely based on customer payment.
- These grids are largely in the states of UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, which have seen significant progress on a number of sustainable development goals based on the success of these mini-grids.
- UP and Bihar have introduced regulations to enable private-sector entrepreneurs to set up mini-grids and to provide a mechanism for private-sector investors to look at this application favourably.
Challenges in tapping of full potential of solar energy
- The current level of global solar investments represents only 10 per cent of the required amount to achieve net-zero emissions.
- Notably, developing countries, which are home to over 50 per cent of the global population, received a mere 15 per cent of renewable energy investments in 2022.
- In Sub-Saharan Africa, per capita investment in renewable energy saw a concerning 44 per cent drop between 2015 and 2021.
- This glaring disparity, compounded by a bias towards large-scale solar projects, underscores a significant imbalance in the types of investments being made.
What can be done to increase the investment in solar mini grids?
- To unlock the potential of smaller-scale solutions like solar mini-grids, it’s imperative to implement guarantees and introduce innovative financial mechanisms complemented by robust risk underwriting that can catalyse private sector investment. (The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is actively spearheading such an initiative through its Global Solar Facility (GSF).
Way forward
- Solar energy presents a financially viable path to energy independence, bolstering security and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
- Moreover, the cost of solar PV energy is now highly competitive, standing at $24/MWh, lower than both coal and natural gas — this is, of course, contingent on sunlight availability.
- The substantial drop in solar module costs over the past decade underscores the holistic benefits of investing in solar energy.
- Creating a diverse energy mix, with adequate centralised and distributed renewable generation, is the future of energy, and is suitable especially in underserved markets where the cost of grid extension to rural, off-grid areas is prohibitive.
- Efficiently planned and well-run solar mini-grids rapidly provide strong and dependable grid-level electricity, surpassing the reliability and cost-effectiveness of alternative electrification methods.
- India’s successful initiative demonstrates how collaboration between private and public sectors can drive innovation, enabling developing economies to achieve a trajectory of robust energy supply with minimal carbon emissions.
Conclusion: Solar energy mini-grids can help end energy poverty of rural communities in climate-vulnerable regions. Investments in these renewable energy initiatives must be scaled up.
Editorial 2 : Affirming priorities
Introduction: The growing convergence of the Indian and American perspectives on the Middle East is among the main signals from the fifth iteration of the “two plus two” meeting last week in Delhi.
Outcome from 2+2 dialogue on middle east
- The defence and foreign ministers of the two countries were unambiguous in condemning Hamas terror, emphasising Israel’s right to self-defence while observing the international laws of war, calling for pauses in Israel’s military operations, demanding the release of hostages held by Hamas, promising more humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and pressing for a durable peace in Palestine.
- The affirmation that Delhi and Washington “stand with Israel against terrorism” underlines how close the two sides have come in the Middle East.
India’s stance on the Israel-Palestine issue from recent UN votes
- Delhi has condemned Hamas’s terrorism while reaffirming its strong commitment to Palestinian statehood.
- The nuance in New Delhi’s approach to the region is clear from two recent votes in the UN: While India abstained two weeks ago from the resolution calling for an end to hostilities because it did not mention Hamas’s use of terror, it voted on November 9 in favour of a resolution that condemned Israeli settlement activities in Palestinian areas.
Significance of 2+2 meeting for Indo-US relations
- The two plus two meeting has, over the last few years, become the principal vehicle to review and advance the India-US strategic partnership.
- Together, the foreign and defence ministers –nudged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi and Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden in Washington — have deepened the intensity of engagement on defence industrial collaboration, technology transfer, counter-terrorism, and regional security.
- Cooperation on Asian security issues is a new element in the engagement between the two nations.
The increasing convergence of Indo-US relations
- Since Independence, Delhi and Washington have been at political odds in Asia.
- This has begun to change in the last few years, as China’s assertiveness challenged the US in Asia, and threatened India’s Himalayan frontiers and its primacy in the South Asian waters.
- This led to the Indian government embracing the Indo-Pacific geopolitical construct articulated by the US and reviving the Quadrilateral security forum that brings Delhi and Washington together with Australia and Japan.
- As India and the US embarked on a cooperative strategy to address the China challenge, conventional wisdom in Delhi insisted that though the two might be on the same side to the east of the Subcontinent, they will remain far apart to the west of the Subcontinent.
- That proposition was quickly overturned as India and the US joined hands with Israel and the UAE to form the I2U2 grouping.
- At the G-20 summit in September, India, along with the US and Saudi Arabia, unveiled the ambition to build an economic corridor between the Subcontinent and Europe.
- Its decisions on the conflict in the Middle East have affirmed that Delhi no longer sees the region through the Pakistan lens and has begun to appreciate its enormous stakes in the region.
- The deepening partnership with the US will reinforce India’s potential to promote peace and prosperity in the Middle East.
Challenges in India- USA relations
- US Criticism of India’s Foreign Policy for not taking aggressive steps to contain China and supporting USA in fight against Russia over Russia-Ukraine war.
- India’s Engagement with US Adversaries like Russia and Iran
- US’ Criticism of India’s Democracy for backsliding rights of minorities in India
- Economic Tensions that come from India’s insistence on Atma-Nirbhar Bharat.
- USA’s support to Pakistan
Conclusion: The affirmation that Delhi and Washington “stand with Israel against terrorism” underlines how close the two sides have come in the Middle East. Delhi has condemned Hamas's terrorism while reaffirming its strong commitment to Palestinian statehood.