Bridge the ‘real’ demand supply gap

India needs to do a lot to bridge the gap between the real requirement and the available supply.
Shaheedul Hasan, Chief Operating Officer, KP Group
  Becoming power surplus needs to be defined especially in the light of 300-400 million Indians still deprived of power, about 35,000 villages still remaining unelectrified and average per capita electricity consumption being only 11GJ (Gigajoule) vis-à-vis world average being 18GJ and 200 GJ for the USA and Canada. And for those who are grid-connected, the quality and reliability of available power is much to be desired. While the talk of progress is quite loud, the ground zero situation tells an altogether a different story. “India needs to do a lot to bridge the gap between the real requirement and the available supply. The amount of diesel being consumed in off-grid regions are simply mind boggling and could be avoided by decentralised generation systems facilitated by renewable like solar and biomass. This will also help in reducing the FOREX spent for paying against import of oil, gas and coal which is a significant part of our FOREX payment. Heavy dependence on imported fuel has another critical dimension of national energy security which could be significantly reduced through distributed generation system using renewable sources,” briefs Shaheedul Hasan, Chief Operating Officer, KP Group.
Disruptive policy Commenting upon the game changer for the transformation he says, “The game changer would be disruptive policy in every state, creating a free and conducive eco-system for open competitions among all stakeholders, strictly avoiding exorbitant statutory charges, easy land acquisition and approvals, low-cost finance and genuinely neutral, independent and powerful SNA and SERC.” Transmission and Distribution (T&D) network is another area of drastic improvement from expansion, strengthening and loss reduction perspectives. Economical and efficient energy storage solutions are crucial to ensure zero loss of power and supplying power when it’s needed by the consumer. Telecom sector could be cited and emulated as the best successful example in our country which has reached 100 per cent tele-density target as against only 3 per cent at the time of liberalising telecom sector in the year of 1994.
Electricity for allWhen it comes to KP Group’s contribution towards this transformation, the company has been significantly contributing towards meeting the dream of electricity for all and aggressive target taken for renewable energy by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi for solar and wind.  It has started its own 50MW solar plant in Bharuch, Gujarat and plans to complete 400MW of wind farm in coastal regions of Gujarat. The group is also promoting solar appliances in a big way.
Improvement in overall eco-system“The opportunities are unlimited for all the stake holders in power sector. Gujarat is on forefront of power sector including renewable and we expect much faster improvements in Gujarat in overall eco-system for the furtherance of PM’s goal. Fortunately, Gujarat has a very pragmatic GEDA (Gujarat Energy Development Agency) and GETCO (Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Ltd) who have been tirelessly spearheading at ground level,” informs Hasan.