Connected is the word to watch

Nearly 6 crore rural households and many urban households too, have no electricity connection.
Anurag Mishra, Head – Solar Business, Emergent Ventures India
Limited electricity or no connectionsThe centre has set a target of generating 1,178 billion units with overall surplus of 1.1 per cent and peak surplus of 2.6 per cent this fiscal as per the Load Generation Balance Report (LGBR) for 2016-17. Data show that the all-India power deficit has been easing from 8.7 per cent in 2012-13; the shortfall was down to 2.1 per cent in 2015-16.  However, commenting on the power surplus scenario, Anurag Mishra, Head – Solar Business, Emergent Ventures India (EVI) says. “The numbers show the extent to which power supply falls short of the demand by those connected to the grid. Connected is the word to watch. With nearly 6 crore rural households and many urban households too, have no electricity connection. So, the reported numbers under-estimate the country’s real demand for electricity. Also, the supply of electricity to farmers (which is subsidised or free) is limited to few hours every day. It is these limited hours of supply that are taken into account while calculating the power requirement of agricultural customers to arrive at the overall deficit or surplus.”
He points out, “The deficit is only capturing the unmet demand of the people connected to the grid. However, people who are yet to be connected and those with poor supply quality are not being taken into account.”
“The narrowing deficit does point to improving supplies and, therefore, reduced load-shedding for those with electricity connections,” adds Mishra.“In my opinion, from the perspective of solar energy, the game changer for this transformation is going to be distributed generation for which the target 40GW under JNNSM has been planned. Further focussing on micro-grid and innovative, cost efficient energy storage technologies for grid stability will play important role in this transformation,” he opined.
Supporting PACE-D programmeEVI has already been working for sustainability by extending its support for government’s PACE-D programme by providing consultancy services. The company is working with many PSUs and large private sector companies working in renewable energy sector.
Emergent Ventures India has its group company ‘WindForce’ dedicated to work in wind energy domain and also recently launched ‘Sunaura technologies’ completely focussed to work in the field of solar energy. “A motivated team of more than 75 professionals is working seriously to this transformation,” he added.
Growing sustainable businessAs EVI is an integrated sustainability and clean energy consulting company involved in solar, wind, sustainable development and climate domain and the country has an ambitious target for power generation, the opportunity for business is enormous. “We have plans in place for growing and sustainable business in India and also in global markets,” informed Mishra on the business prospects.