Writing off India’s coal story too soon will impact economic, energy security: Coal Secretary

• 'India's energy transition should also be a just transition'

• 'We must be cognisant of the transition agenda but today, what I fear is that suddenly we are writing off a source of energy which meets a huge share of the country's electricity'

New Delhi: While delineating India's plan for energy transition, Coal Secretary Dr Anil Kumar Jain warned that writing off India's coal story too soon in pursuit of clean energy will have implications for the economy and the country's energy security interests. Speaking at the 11th World PetroCoal Congress and World Future Fuel Summit on Tuesday, Dr Jain said, "It is quite evident that nations that do not see the writing on the wall and start planning the transition will be in for a rude shock. And coal is the biggest culprit."

"But at the same time, the coal story of India or the oil story of India cannot just be written off because it will have huge implications for the country. Let us make sure that we do not write the epitaph of coal too early and damage the country's economic and energy security interest," said the Secretary.

'Energy transition should be a just transition as well'

Recalling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for climate change to be based around climate justice, the Coal Secretary said that India's energy transition should also be a just transition. "A just transition means that our country's growth ambitions, energy security ambitions cannot be thrown to the winds in the quest for clean energy. We need clean energy for our cities, air quality, our children, our future, but it should be gradual," said Dr Jain.

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"India is a country which has the world's fifth-largest coal reserves of the world, where fossil fuels put together meet around 90 percent of the requirement in the commercial primary energy space. In the electricity space, coal meets around 66-70 percent of the country's electricity requirement," said the Coal Secretary. 

Acknowledging the reality of the narrative warning against continuing the dependence on fossil fuels to earth's peril, Dr Jain said, "We must be cognisant of the transition agenda but today, what I fear is that suddenly we are writing off a source of energy which meets a huge share of the country's electricity. And at the end of the day, solar only meets 4 percent the country's electricity supply, and wind an equal amount of 4 percent and small hydro and others take up another 2 percent. We are a country which should be registering an 8-9 percent GDP growth rate. At about 8-9 percent, there's easily a nearly 5 percent growth in the country's electricity demand. And we can't imagine renewable sources, like solar, which is currently at 4 percent, meeting the growing energy demand in the short term."

'Non-power sectors will need coal in the years to come'

Pointing towards the demand for coal in non-power sectors, like aluminium, iron and steel, Dr Jain said that the country will continue to require coal as it grows and builds more infrastructures. "Let us look at the non-electricity demand for coal. India has 4 Million Tonne (MT) aluminium production. In the aluminium consumption profile of any country, almost half of the aluminium produced is used in the construction industry. And about 60 percent of the entire built-up civil structure of 2030 is yet to be built in India. And that will call for a lot of usage of aluminium. And for India's aluminium production to go up, it needs coal. India's iron and steel production, for which the target has been set at 300 MT, needs coal," he said.

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