Editorial 1. Giving data its due
Context:
- The oft-used phrase “data is the new oil” has almost become a cliché. The world’s ability to generate data is now increasing exponentially.
- Every minute, servers log information on all aspects of society, from consumer and industry behaviour to the delivery of government programmes.
- In many respects, the Government of India is not only leading this drive but also creating new roadmaps by enabling the development of a rich data ecosystem.
Judicious use of Data ecosystem results into positive outcomes:
- Collecting and storing data is the first step in realising its potential.
- A coherent data ecosystem that is, a strategy and a set of tools to process, manage and use data is essential. At the scale of the Government of India, improvements to the data ecosystem can have profound positive impacts.
National Data and Analytics Platform (NDAP):
- In May 2022, the NITI Aayog, in collaboration with ministries and state governments, endeavoured to fill this need by launching a transformational open data platform called the National Data and Analytics Platform (NDAP).
- NDAP serves foundational datasets from central and state government entities in machine-readable formats, with user-friendly interface and powerful analytics.
- The platform uses cutting-edge methods to link diverse datasets from across the government and enables the use of several types of data at once.
- NDAP’s target users include policymakers, civil servants, university students and researchers, journalists, innovators, and civil society groups. A platform of this scale and vision is rare, and NDAP can set a global standard.
Expected Positive outcomes of NDAP:
- It is Explicitly designed to solve the issues that limit the use of government data today.
- The design process of NDAP was preceded by extensive research with diverse data users to learn about their demand for government data, skills to use it effectively and challenges faced in doing so.
- Public data is often stored on platforms that are difficult to use and in formats that delay analysis. Data from different sources do not speak to each other, meaning users cannot compare data from different departments or data gathered over time.
- Finally, because of slow updating processes and inconsistencies in data quality. To address these challenges, every step of the NDAP design process includes rigorous user testing to ensure that the platform precisely solves these issues.
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How data can be used?
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- Therefore, with NDAP, the decision-maker can access the data from all three sources seamlessly linked into a single dataset. She can then download the data and analyse it using her preferred method or use inbuilt analytics and visualisation tools to better understand the data on the platform itself.
- The civil servant can save considerable time and make her decisions more data-driven. In turn, the people of the state can enjoy better governance and programme outcomes. Neither the technical tools nor the data that enable this improved scenario are ground-breaking; rather, the revolutionary value of NDAP is to bring them together on a platform that is precisely attuned to the needs of its users.
Conclusion:
- Indian government has adopted evidence-based policy-making and implementation. However, such a goal can only be met with active collaboration with states.
- Hence, NDAP has been made an integral part of the State Support Mission of NITI Aayog. The development of state-specific portals on the lines of NDAP not only helps in cost and time saving but also ensures that all states are equal partners in this journey of becoming champions of data-driven policymaking.
- It is also helpful in developing the spirit of cooperative federalism, NDAP strives to maintain the principles of collaboration across the board.
- Its public access has provided opportunities for all, including states, ministries, and India’s data community, to support NDAP by helping improve, expand and update the platform’s existing datasets and capability.
- It will also enable incoming government officers to develop a data-driven decision-making mindset from their first field job. Together, we can make NDAP an open data platform that can play a vital role in facilitating data-driven governance
Editorial 2. The difficulty with renewables
Context:
- India has ambitious targets to combat climate change that are reflected in India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC)
- Out of which one of the targets is
- To achieve about 50 percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030, with the help of transfer of technology
- Therefore, India’s push towards decarbonisation has to be backed with adequate storage facilities, without which it clearly cannot go forward beyond a point. This is because of two reasons.
- The first is that the storage will handle the intermittency problem (due to sudden cloud cover or drop in wind velocity) of renewables.
- Second, coal-based generation cannot be phased out till such time as we can rely on stored energy to provide electricity in the non-solar hours.
Dependency over coal-based Energy generation:
- Currently, India has more than 200 GW of coal-based capacity and are managing the show by backing down these stations when required.
- The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) recognises 55 per cent as the technical minimum which means that a 1,000 MW plant can run at 550 MW.
- The additional operating cost for running the plant at 55 per cent capacity (on account of higher auxiliary consumption or self-consumption by the generating plant amongst others) is allowed by the CERC as legitimate expenditure and hence it is reflected in the generation tariff.
- Efforts are on right now to ascertain whether the technical minimum can be further brought down to 40 per cent. Of course, all this requires a detailed study in consultation with the original equipment manufacturers to assess the loss of life to these machines, if any, by operating at such low capacities
A Mixed source of electricity generation is the solution:
- When India’s renewable capacity goes up further and assuming that they “must run” so that solar and wind energy is not wasted, coal-based capacity may need to go below the technical minimum, which is not feasible.
- At this point, some of the coal-based units would generate at the technical minimum and the extra renewable energy (over and above what is required by the grid) would be used to charge the batteries.
- This stored energy could then be used to supply electricity during the non-solar hours, especially in a situation where the coal-based generating units would be phased out gradually to enable us to become net zero by 2070.
- However, some minimum coal-based generation would still be required for meeting a part of the base load and one has to rely on the available carbon sinks to neutralise the carbon dioxide emissions.
- However, storage capacity we need to maintain depends upon a lot of factors like the demand for power existing at that point in time, the shape of the load curve, the cost of generation from each source, and cost of batteries.
The storage options before us:
- One usually speaks of hydrogen-based storage, lithium-ion batteries and pump storage plants.
- As far as hydrogen storage is concerned, it is found to be feasible for long-term storage, meaning across seasons. One can use this stored energy, for example, in situations when coal mining goes down (which happens during monsoons) affecting thermal generation or when hydro generation depletes due to low reservoir levels etc.
- For day-to-day storage and dissipation, batteries are still the ideal source. Though the cost of batteries has declined by about 80 per cent over the last decade, it is still quite expensive as the levelised cost of a battery is about Rs 8 to Rs 10 per unit.
- Moreover, the pace of decline in the cost of batteries has reached a plateau and in fact, has started rising. This happened for the first time since 2010, due to an increase in the cost of lithium and battery components.
- Coming to pump storage plants, India has a total capacity of about 4.7 GW (out of a worldwide capacity of 169 GW, China alone accounting for about 32 GW) but only 3.3 GW is functional
- Pump storage plants have not really grown in India due to several factors, including
- high investment costs, long gestation periods, non-remunerative pricing models and lack of adequate sites having the topography that is required for operating a pump storage plant.
- Pump storage plants have not really grown in India due to several factors, including
- With batteries and pump storage options facing hurdles, India’s growth in renewable capacity is likely to hit a roadblock after some time due to inadequate storage capacity. We would not be able to phase out our coal-based generation and would need thermal support during the non-solar hours. Incidentally, storage will not be our only roadblock.
- The financial condition of our distribution companies (discoms) will be another hindrance. The additional solar and wind capacity has to come from the private sector and no developer is going to come forward unless there is some credible payment security mechanism. Problems with land acquisition, and securing the right of way for laying down transmission lines will also continue to hinder progress.
Conclusion
- To sum up, the lack of storage capacity is likely to affect our resolve to go net zero by 2070 unless battery costs go down in the years to come.
- Batteries, incidentally, will not only adversely affect phasing out our coal-based generation but will also affect the pace of introducing electric vehicles (EVs) since batteries account for about 30 to 40 per cent of the cost of EVs.
- The target of having 500 GW of non-fossil generating capacity by 2030 may sound impressive but may prove to be elusive unless we can enhance our storage capacity through not only batteries but also pump storage plants.