New Records, New Challenges: Is India’s Power Supply System Equipped? | ft. Rajiv Goyal

[Podcast intro]

Welcome to the season four of the India Energy Hour podcast. This podcast explores the most pressing hurdles and promising opportunities of Indias energy transition through an in depth discussion on policies, financial markets, social movements and science. Your host for this episode is Shreya Jai, Delhi based energy and climate journalist. The show is produced by 101 reporters, a pan India network of grassroots reporters that produces original stories from rural India. This summer was all about breaking records from temperature to electricity demand. India clocked the highest ever electricity demand of 260 gw during the summer months thanks to sweltering heat in all parts of the country. But is it just the heat? Has the electricity usage behavior changed in the country? Are air conditioners shaping our power demand? Are the demand drivers shifting from commercial to domestic? Is the electricity supply landscape prepared for extreme weather events impacting both the infrastructure and the supply? Planning to take a micro look at India’s electricity demand supply system, we talked with Rajiv Goyal. Goyle has served in various positions across power distribution companies. He is credited with the successful setting up of the Noida Power Company Limited. He is considered an expert in power distribution planning, smart metering and power sector regulations, among other things. He is currently CEO and whole time director at EKi Power Trading.

[end]

[Podcast interview]

Shreya Jai: Hello Mister Goyal, thank you so much for joining us at the India NRGR. We, are absolutely delighted to have you here. with your rich experience in the power sector, no one could have been a better fit for this particular episode. A very new topic that the indian RGR is taking up. We usually take very broad based topic and the feedback from our listeners has been that we should focus on issues that impact the general public. And what could be better than talking about power cuts, power outages and heat waves. So thank you again for joining us at the India Najia.

Rajiv Goyal: I’m extremely thankful for you to give me this opportunity. And definitely, yes, the power is one of the infrastructure, which affects every facet of life. And it’s not only that the outages or the non availability of the power today, only I was discussing with the like the re transition is happening. And in re transition, what we have observed that thousands of the laborers are, you know, being put up on the construction sites, but they are being paid so low and the conditions for their working is also very poor. And we are, you know, thumping our chest that, rs2.54 paisa we are achieving in the solar project. But I say, even if we are achieving rs2.65 paisa, but we are paying the good amount to the laborers and we are bringing the changes in their life that is much better than paying the rs2.54 paisa. So I think I will be able to you know convey my messages with your, you know this podcast.

Shreya Jai: Sure, definitely. And what a fiery start to it. and obviously it comes from your experience. You have had a very long career in the power sector in variety of roles. you have been with distribution companies, a lot of power companies. You have been associated with Noida Power Company as well. you redesigned their whole power distribution strategy just before we start and get into this topic which you are very excited always to talk about can you tell us about your journey? Where are you from? What did you study? What were your learnings in the power sector? And as I would like to call it your footprints on the way in this sector.

Rajiv Goyal: So I did my engineering from m the college called recall. So nowadays they call it National Institute of Technology. So I passed in 1995 from there in the electrical engineering. And it happened that I joined a company called Motherson Sumi System which they are very big in the powering harness. So after almost eight, nine months then I joined Noida power company in 1996 and there I worked almost eight years. Then I worked with secure meters and there I was working for BACs and NDPL. They started their operations that time. So I was looking after their metering operations and then I joined also a company called Mott McDonald Consultant. So it was really a big platform for me to actually work on the large government projects. So I did a project called maneri bali hydropower plant. That is four into 92 megawatt hydro plant. Then the second one was designing of entire network of Horangapa city. And also the designing of Sej called Meehan. That’s very near to the Nagpur airport I mean the adjacent to the Nagpur airport. And we designed 4000

area sez area and the transmission distribution network. And that was the time I actually learned that not only the capacity of the distribution network the aesthetics also makes a huge difference. So the 6th subs where I mean we constructed. So if you will any go there and you find that there is no superstition it’s a shopping mall. So from outside you will see a shopping mall. The inside there is a substitution. So once again I joined in 2006 the Noida Power Company. And I worked there till 2019. Out of that you know I was looking at the operations, the power trading, their projects. So I built up the entire offices. The it is a seven star facility today in the, the entire India that the power swamp is having. And we constructed something around 52 sessions. And the capacity which we designed, in a manner that by 2018 we were having a capacity which can, you know, actually cover 2035 load. So I mean that today the load is reached around 750 megawatt there. So then I joined market and I was serving as the chairman office, UPPCL there. So I was engaged in lot of, you know, tenders, the new policies and the day to day operations, the, how we should improve the financial conditions of the discoms. And then definitely I joined that Ek Energy, so they are in the carbon credits and the power trading. So this is the time which I have spent. And apart from that I keep on working in the social sectors also in my personal times. So that also gives me a lot of, you know, feedback from the people that, how they see our services.

Shreya Jai: No, I completely agree. And what a journey it’s been. we see, keep seeing your LinkedIn post, not only just on the power sector, but all the work that you’re doing in the social sector as well.

I’ll quickly now jump to the topic because it would be unfair to stop you from not commenting, on it. The country is currently grappling with heat waves. High temperatures have left to power demand. So we have touched the magical number of 250 gigawatt of power demand this year. can you explain the current demand scenario? What are the major drivers, and why the energy basket of this country is dominated by coal?

Rajiv Goyal: So two points, like, one is that the power demand soaring and the other one is that the thermal power. So on the first part, I always see that India is 140 crore people today. And this is the aspirational country. I mean, today we are, contributing almost 10 million people who are entering into the middle class. And this 10 million people means we are creating one Singapore and one Dubai every year within the country. So, it’s not that the power demand is soaring. My point is that power demand should have showed this way only actually we were in the habit of the, you know, creating an infrastructure for some 3%, 4%, 5%, but at least, the way the demand, the people, you know, actually the life is changing. So they are adding the air conditioning, they are adding the many gadgets in their houses. The government of India is, you know, creating a lot of housing infrastructure. They are creating like railway reforms, they are creating lot of railway stations, lot of bus stations and lot of airports. So this all shows that we actually require a lot of power demand. And I see that for next ten years, ah, at least eight to 10% kind of power demand should increase in every area, in every sector. And we must actually design our cities to cater to this kind of demands. And when I say that eight to 10% so means today if we are crossing or touching the 250,000 megawatt demand, I understand that by 20, 32, 33, this demand should touch something around 4000, I mean, this 480 gigawatt. So demand is going, always going to remain very high in this country because that our urban centers are increasing almost today we have something around 54 55% of the urban population. And when we say 54 55%. So out of that almost ten to 12% population is in the town area, which is like treated as a villages only. So this country is going to have something around m 70% real urban centers by 2035. So our demand should increase very fast. Second is the thermal. So basically, unless until we find the great stability factors like BSP and the battery storage, we cannot create the renewable power in such a manner that the demand can, you know, match, the supply side. And for that purpose we have to be focused on the coal. Yes, nuclear. And hydro can provide certain kind of, you know, resort to this, to run away with the coal. But again, the hydro is taking almost 15, crore per megawatt kind of investment. It’s taking eight to ten years of time. The battery storage definitely it’s increasing, but it will take something around 2029 to 2030 to stabilize somewhere around 50 gigawatt and pf pump hydro again, like Terry is coming very soon, maybe in the month of August only. But the real PSP should come something around 20, 28, 29. By that time we definitely will have to live with the coal. And the second is why the coal is increasing again. So what I am saying that we were hunger, so once we were hungry and we are starting consuming. So if we will not develop this some ten year for 15 year window will not create the capacity. So we’ll again have kind of shortages, the huge shortages in the power. Fortunately, this year you must have seen with 250 gigawatt also our peak power deficit was only 0.1 or 0.2%. So that’s very encouraging for the country.

Shreya Jai: Absolutely. Before I jump on to the micro aspects of what is driving the demand and how cities need to be prepared for it, if you can quickly, explain to our listeners, how does a power distribution companies, and for the layman listeners, a power distribution company is someone who plans and delivers electricity to your households. I’m sure you will have a much more comprehensive definition. But how does a discom plans the electricity distribution like for these all sweltering summer months? How do discoms plan ahead? What is the long term, short term plan as to maintain a match between the demand and supply?

Rajiv Goyal: So, like in a. Any power distribution company, you will. We have the two kind of things. One is that the, supply side. The supply side is basically the arrangement of the powers. The second is that the network, so the two different departments or the two different teams are actually working. Almost every discom, the same structure is there. So when we call for the network. So there is a huge deficit. If I can remember 2014 or 15, even for five megawatt, we used to suffer a lot. The capacity in the inter regional, capacities were not there. And even the five megawatt used to be truncated almost every other day. But today, the capacity is in the transmission sectors. So they are very good. And the way, the PGCL and other companies are there constructing the transmission lines, for the re corridor, for the thermal corridors. So I believe that the transmission is not a, such a big issue. But definitely when we come to the distribution level, there is a huge, huge shortages almost in every city, whether it is a, Bombay or it is a noida or any other city. The government of India fortunately started a scheme called RDSs and, they have, budgeted around three lakh crore rupees. Three, lakh crore. If I say that, almost $40 billion, they are investing in next five years in the distribution network. Out of that, 50% is towards the smart m meeting and 50% towards the network. While again, I am saying that the way the distribution system is to be upgraded. So basically in RDSS, also the main focus is to, create a radial network wherein the capacities are available. But this is not the, you know, this is kind of beginning only in all big cities, whether the population is more than 1 million. We must drive for the power distribution network, which is not radial, which is basically ring made. And many of these cities are to be made underground. What is happening today that a small wind or a small rain? Sometimes they say that because of rain, sometimes because of wind, sometimes because of moisture, sometimes because of this nature, that nature supply outages are there. So by 2024, we are sitting. We cannot actually face our consumers in this manner. We have to provide them a reliable supply. And for that reliable supply we have to inculcate On the service side and on the network side that the radial network is being removed, I mean converted to the ring main network. We must have the digital twins wherein the concept of IoT devices are being placed into the network, Like transformers or the feeders. So that before that the customer is giving the information. The information should have automatically come to the control room. Now what is happening that the private sector, I mean they are already implemented a lot of you know automation systems but in government, in the RDSs they are implementing. And I hope that In next three to four years there are also a lot of asset development and the Automation will happen. But at the same time the scientific approach for distribution, network creation that is not happening. So it might be possible that at some of the points we will have the transformers which are highly underloaded and some of the transformers will remain overloaded. It is happening because the urban planning and the electricity planning these two things should have been actually you know merged, meshed and The combined you know, results would have been done. But that is not been done as of now. But again something is happening biggest. So we must actually congratulate the government also that they have taken this kind of big step indefinitely. In the coming time the government will also feel that the urban and when they are coming up with a smart cities program so they may come up with the program that the Underground cabling may be done and this the AI and the Iot you know switches they have been implemented so that the Automatically information and the Automatic release to the Faulty Network. That can happen.

Shreya Jai: Yeah. I’ll probe you further on this and because I want this issue to be de jargonized.

Because reader, our listeners should definitely understand how a power cut happens and what are the reasons. And you said something very interesting and let’s start from there that the electricity planning and the urban planning are not insane. You said that there are urban centers which are overloaded with demand. And just to give An example of it there are images and videos coming in where In front of a transformer people have put a cooler and a big fan so that it doesn’t heat up or catches fire. So let’s take it one by one. First of all on the infrastructure front and I’m talking about district level, state, city level Sub eleven kv. We call it 1122 kv, 33 kv network. How is that infrastructure is that infrastructure robust enough to cater to the rising demand. you mentioned that urban centers are becoming overloaded because our residential demand is growing, which is basically coming from air conditioners, cooling equipments, etcetera, you might elucidate more on that. According to you, and would you like to rate states and give a good example and a bad example?

Rajiv Goyal: So like, if I give you one example, like we created Mihan SEz, so we created that in 2005. Even today, this network is only 10% loaded. I give you example, in Noida power, in BACs, in NDPL, there are many areas where we had created the networks, which are, even after implementation of six, years, seven years. So they are loaded to some 15%, 20%. So what happens that people, maybe in the regulator, they also say that you are, you know, creating the, over capacity infrastructure. It is not like that. The infrastructure is being created in, especially in the urban areas where, you know, you have to cut a lot of roads also you have to, you will not get the row also. So you have to create the over capacity, definitely, because you don’t want to work there for next 20, 25, 30 years. You will not get the row, you will not get the, you know, permissions to cut the roads. You will not get the permission, to cut the trees. So it is definitely that once we are planning something, we should plan at least 30 years ahead. So that demand should have been there. Now what is happening like in Delhi, Noida, in any other city, if you go, even in Bombay, you will go a lot of buildings, maybe it was only 500 square meter a plot. Single family was living. Today something, you know, 30 flats are coming up on the same plot. So you cannot create infrastructure like that. So basically what I am trying to say, that when FSA are allowed to be increased by the municipalities, so they should take into confidence the, you know, the utility services also, whether it is a gas, electricity, water, or anyone for that purpose, the municipality should actually allow and they should say that create the infrastructure for next 30 years. Because what will happen, today if one building is coming up. So they must actually understand that in next two to three or five years, in that particular area, all the buildings are going to be converted into the multi story kind of thing. Similarly, the housing sizes are also decreasing. The third is that earlier in very big houses, you must have seen there is only one air conditioner and that used to run for some two, three, 4 hours when everyone in the family used to, you know, sit in that particular room. Today, even in two BSK flat, there are three acs. People are now putting up the acs, you know, in all the drawing rooms and rooms. And if there are three acs you just consider that one ac is going to run 24 into seven. The temperatures are going high every year. so point here is that we can’t, you know, go and preaching that you put on the trees and all that because you know, population is increasing. So you have to create the infrastructure. So that is one side of the trees and all that. But that’s because urbanization that increases in some pockets only. That does not increase, you know, evenly into the entire piece of the land. So my point here is that the infrastructure which we create should be the. For the long term should have the automatic kind of features. It should be able to communicate with the control room and there must be minimum downsize time for that purpose. We should have the, you know, the ring main. We can create a, you know, faulty network, isolated and the healthy network we can put onto the service people are, you know, they are getting the continuous supply. Why so? Because you know, today, whether in a family, a student is there, so they have to study, there are old people, they have to take medicine, they have to sleep and there are many other things. So for that purpose we need to create, you know, have a basic understanding of the synchronization of these two services. And after that the o and m, the maintenance. What happens that we have laid the cables then municipality actually allowing the other line, or the other services to, you know, lay the cable and they are in the same row. What happens when the one is cutting the other line, the other one is cutting the second line. So for that purpose all municipality, just like in your gulf countries or other, you know, we had gone to Singapore. So municipality carries all the gis, mapping in 3d, in, you know, in the depth also for all services and they only give the permission that which row you are going to utilize for which services. So that kind of you know, discipline should come into our country also. And whenever they’re planning any kind of, you know, city or any kind of new roads, so they should carry out the provisions for the ducts for all these kind of services.

Shreya Jai: Right. And what kind of infrastructure planning can a discom do? And can you cite a good example which is showcasing where the discom thought ahead of time and planned its power supply infrastructure in place? And can you cite a bad example.

Rajiv Goyal: I give you one of the best example. Gandhi Nagar. Gandhi Nagar was created somewhere in seventies. And, you know, the infrastructure which they had created it is, you know, working even today. Also a very good manner. There is no upgradation in, like bacs in some of the areas. So they were very congested areas. And I have seen personally that there were only one cable used to be there for supplying of the entire, you know, the street and something like that. And I was very surprised in, 2003, four when I saw they instead of one cable, they were laying some eight, nine cables. So, you know, so those are the good examples. The bad examples you can see in the noidles itself. You know, the load is increasing. The people are constructing more floors, they are not engaging the transformers, they are not making the underground lines because the department is not having much of the funds available for them because they have a big state to create the infrastructure. The Noida authority is also not taking the responsibility. Ultimately, it is a issue of the prestige of the Noida city. And they are taking so much of money from, so many France. They should create infrastructure in the city in a manner that the reputation of the city should not go waste. So there are, I mean, many examples. So I can’t say like that, but, I can’t take the name. But again, if you will go to the, NDPL area, bss area, even for the NPCL area, and there are many, you know, torrent in Surat, you will see, you will not find. The people will say you that for last two, three, four years, they have not seen one, even a blinking on their earth. So that should actually be the, motto of every distribution manager to serve the customers. Not that only light has gone for five minutes, ten minutes. So what, what is wrong? The wind was there very high, so light has gone. So this should not be the, you know, the culture of the.

Shreya Jai: There, is a funny video circulating on social media where this worker comes to the manager of a distribution company and says, there are two drops of rain. And he said, cut the power. He said, the temperature has risen by two degrees. He said, cut power. So, yeah, jokes, apart, and I’ll digress, here a bit. The names that you have taken, interestingly, are all private companies. And that, brings me to a word that is not liked much in the power supply chain, and that is privatization. do you think privatization or the entry of a private player into power distribution has the role to play in reforming the power supply in these regions? Or, was it because the state government pushed reforms, pushed better technology through these private players. And it was actually the regulations which is the hero of the game here.

Rajiv Goyal: Again. you know, the management is management. The human beings are seen. So whether it is a private company or it is a government company, I have tested the. Both the things. I work for the government companies also. I work for the private companies also. So in my opinion I can’t say that the government companies are best or the private companies are best or government companies are. You know, they’re not giving the good things. MSc retail in many areas you will find the same kind of services with the Torah is giving in the surat for that purpose. Even if you go to the know, the chandigarh, they are having the very good, supply conditions. You go to the Goa, they are also having the very good supply conditions. So like in Gujarat also, you will find service levels are very good. So it is not that the government or the private. The point here is that we have two things shortage. One is the network and the other one is the supply capacity. Supply capacity up to a certain level. The government or and the private sector both have combined together and they have reduced that, you know, outages on network side. There is a huge shortage. If you did the order of November, this not November, this April or may, Tamil Nadu has given a very good order. Tamil Nadu regulator, he said very point, rightly that universal service obligation though it has to be maintained by the power, this form. But in the given situation, the power companies cannot alone can, you know, oblige, cannot be obligated for the universal service obligation. And the consumer, the private sector, the other sector, they all have to come together and resolve the issues. So my point here is that the section 14 of Electricity act, they say the parallel license. So now the real thing is that the parallel licenses should be allowed in almost every city, at least 1 million plus city. Let the people come invest into the network. Wherever the network is sufficient enough. Let them, you know, use the network of each other party by paying the billing charges. So real issue is that we have a shortage of network capacities as far as the like metering is concerned. So the government of India putting up 25 crore meters, smart meters. And these are going to be implemented by all the private companies. So one way, the asset is already privatized. Services have gone to the private sector. So. But again, that will give only the, you know, the help to the. For the correct billing. The data analysis data analysis for the real, you know, the rightly power purchase network development, reduction of TND losses on the network side of, the ports and the cables and the transformers. So as of now, this is a responsibility of a state swamp, or whichever that is, form the private storm or the, state is formed. Private swamps. Generally they have a good money sources available with them. They are putting it up. Unfortunately, in some of the private discomfort the regulator have become. So, you know, strict to them that they are asking them to take approval even for installing a 400 kv transformer. So that is not a right way of allowing a discom to function. So that is not the work of the regulator to, you know, micromanage the, transformer installation work. And in the government sector, see, the state resources are very, you know, very, very difficult to get the state resources. They have got so many schemes to implement for that purpose. Either the parallel licenses they should allow, or they should allow, like TBCB is implemented in the transmission sector. So similarly, TBCB kind of, you know, system should be allowed in the distribution. Also. I seen the Rajasthan, because I, submitted a proposal to UPPCL chairman in, 2021, when, I was working with the UPPCL. So I submitted a proposal and later on I saw a tender from the Rajasthan. The 22 number of 33 kv subcutaneous and associated eleven KB and 33 kv lines say they were put on to the tender under

PPP, where a company has to come, commission on entire project and they will get the money, on a monthly fees kind of thing. And they have to maintain the network also for ten minutes of time. So this is the way the public funds can be brought in. private funds can be brought in and the public infrastructure can, you know, gain. And today you must have seen that SBI has, you know, issued bonds for 10,000 crore rupees, for which they have received 20,000 crore rupees. And that is also at only 7.36%. So we do not have shortage of funds in this country. As of now, we can’t say that we don’t have funds. Funds are sufficient, that is, to be channelized to the right way. And for that purpose, I say, if we privatize everything, that is also not good. We keep everything on the government, that is also not good. Both the system should come and they work and there is a huge volume they are going to come once. We are saying that today something around 42 43% is the urban. In next 15 years, it is going to increase to some 60%. So we can understand that almost double kind of thing are going to come into the city itself. So we must actually, you know, allow, at least in the, cities, which are 1 million plus population, two players to come and, you know, operate just like your Mumbai.

Shreya Jai: very interesting points, all of them. I just want to also understand, does the financial situation of the Descoms has a role to play? For the last 15 years, there have been one or the other financial restructuring schemes for the power distribution companies. Some failed, some worked partially. And now there is another, RDSS scheme, which focuses on a very characteristic approach. do you think that private sector has been wary of the distribution sector because of this only. And the section 14 that you mentioned, which basically opens the door, for a parallel license or another player to come into the same area, would open more doors for private investment into, distribution.

Rajiv Goyal: Very rightly, you have said. So. We need to dividend, the functioning of disposal two areas. One is that urban area. Otherwise the rural area. Urban area is where the municipalities, should come and pitch in. They are also having the posh areas and the slum areas. So if they are constructing the pipe water pipelines, they are constructing the, you know, roads state. So they must have certain funds available for the electricity network also every year they should have. And similarly, like in village areas, we have the panchayat, you know, and the, rural, development department. So they are constructing a lot of things there that talab. they are constructing the street lights. They are giving the roads. They are, you know, putting up the russian, they are giving free. So similarly, some of the amount should be kept for the restricted network. So we need to understand that the state storms especially, I’m saying the state is compensated, it is a burden on them to develop the entire network, on their cost. And then, you know, they, have to supply electricity where a lot of money is not coming up. So for that purpose, I always say that this kind of scheme, like RDSs kind of scheme, or we should not call it basically financial restructuring of the discomfort. These are the social sector investments. Like, if I. Most of the time, I say the hydropower plant. Why the hydro power plant is considered as a, you know, a property of the electricity department. Hydropower plant, they, you, know, turn on the water, they produce electricity, and the same water they produce into the fields, which are otherwise going to be flooding to the lot of areas. So what way the hydropower plant is helping us? The electricity, they are giving any byproduct, but at the same time, they are giving, I mean they are they are actually huge services to the farmers and the government that they are reducing the floods. They are timely producing the water, timely giving the water for the irrigation. So hydro power plant cost at least should be 50 50 divided into the two departments, the, irrigation department and the electric department. Similarly, the distribution network, it should be divided in two parts. One is that part where, you know, you know, the. For the augmentation kind of thing, the distribution network has to be developed by the discom. But for the initial areas, initial period when there was no electricity or the, you know, the new area is being developed. So this is the, responsibility of the local government. And they should actually fund 100% to the state, to the, storms. If they do so in the ARR, we will find a lot of reduction in terms of the depreciation cost, roe cost, interest cost, and therefore our tariff will also come down. So, whole blame cannot be, you know, put onto the dysmorph. and the four. Another point you must understand and appreciate that discomfort, that poor chap that in the entire value chain from your coal to train to, you know, shipping to the generating plant to the transmission, everybody is actually, you know, take money from the discom and discom has to go to the customer side and the customer almost, you know, in every state you will go, you will find that as far as the customer numbers are concerned, almost 50% customers, they are not paying for years together. Almost 50% northeast, if you go it is almost 80%. So my point here is that by burdening this form in every aspect and then not giving them any kind of resort is not a right thing. It’s not that financial restructuring of the discomfort. It is a financial restructuring of entire power sector. So we should not be blamed as a discomfort, only that, you know, we are failing. similarly, like I said, a very, you know, valid point for the discomfort like merit order. Dispatch is being put on to the storms for power scheduling. Now, if NTPC or NHPC, they have multiple plants, they are, you know, giving power to the multiple state. Why that this form should be warden. they should have one nation, one tariff and this form should be said, okay, I need this much of power. You give me this much of power and this much is the rate. So single rate should be there. So, you know, we have to now come to the conclusion that we should, you know, change the policies or the regulations in a manner that we are, you know, the highly regulated sector has to be, you know, this regulations have to be reduced. The life of the firm may have to be easy. And as far as the RDCs kind of scheme. So this should be a central budget every year. They should, you know, provide to the state. They should every year.

Shreya Jai: Sorry, I missed your last line. That every year the budget, what I’m trying.

Rajiv Goyal: RDSS scheme. So this scheme is basically for building up the infrastructure. So building of the infrastructure is not a sole responsibility of the discomfort. It is a responsibility of the state government only somehow in the past the have taken this responsibility onto their head. So they are, you know, following that practice. But this is the reason that they are always coming to the, you know, the negative or the debt balance sheet. So state government and the central government, every year in the, you know, annual budget they should provide this kind of funds to the storms to create the infrastructure. Because they are getting the, you know, taxes from their own people. So they have to, you know, return their taxes in the form of the infrastructure only. So why that this form should be burdened for entire hundred percent, you know, capital expenditures. It should be the responsibility of the state government and the central government. I give you one example. Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Pardes is a state which is not having much of the industry but they are the largest producer of the food. Now in the process they are giving a lot of electricity to their farmers. And it is a almost Zero cost electricity they are giving. So it means when they are producing the food, at the cost of the food their discom is getting, you know. They are, they are having the losses but they are feeding the entire country. So actually for that additional energy they are giving to their farmers. So they should get the money. So it is not the kind of subsidy we should say that they are getting subsidy or the financial structuring. So Baja should actually look into the matter that the urban cities, the rural department, they must be given certain budget for electrical infrastructure also. In turn they should be given to the state government. Sorry, state scoms. And they should build up the network. So overall they can, you know, you know, they can service the network also. And they can have their load tariff also.

Shreya Jai: Good. You mentioned the other parts of the power supply chain, which is coal transport, power generation, hydro and other sources as well. let me begin by asking are we surplus in power supply? You know, on the numbers do look pretty impressive. We have more than 400 gigawatt of power generation capacity. And if you look at the current peak demand, we are near to the half point only. the coal situation this year has improved significantly, but we continue to depend on coal. so if you can just give us a detail about what does our power generation scenario looks like, and are we comfortable enough to meet with the demand if it were to rise in double digits every year?

Rajiv Goyal: Certainly, this year we have,able to achieve a condition where the peak demand was shortening only on 0.1%. This used to be around, 3.5% last ten years back. So, we have the, India has actually grown up a lot in the capacity terms. And the way the government of India started the new constructions, I believe that generation capacities are not going to be, issued. Transmission capacity will also not be an issue. The only point here is that the actual demand we have not received till now, when we say that 2050, I mean, this, 250,000, megawatt was achieved, and the gap was only 0.1%. So it is that almost, which I understand at the national level, ten to 15,000 megawatt has actually not come into the system. So more and more distribution network upgradation will happen. The transmission capacity update will happen. We will see that a lot of, you know, the new demand will come up in this sector. I have seen personally, when the net, when you supply less, the, network is less, your demand does not grow much faster. When you start supplying, unthrottle, your demand is also going into, exponentially. They rise. yesterday only, I was talking to someone and he told me in the Noidae power, last year, the peak demand was only 550 megawatt. This year is a 750 megawatt. This is almost 35% more. So that’s what I’m saying, that in urban areas, the demand is always going to remain ten to 12% higher because a lot of construction are coming up. So as far as the hydro is concerned, we have lost the tista. Last year, almost 500, 600 megawatt capacity is being lost. And hydro capacity, they take something around seven to eight years of time. So we are not going to grow a lot of, you know, hydro. The only respite is going to come from, thermal plants. So again, we don’t think that, more than 5600 megawatt capacity will come from the thermal. Renewable has to play a very big role, where they can come up to 20,000 megawatt every year, kind of thing. And to stabilize the grid, the battery storage is the fastest solution, which we have to implement. By all the discomforts, the regulator should actually allow recs in, I mean, m the in ratio of ten x so that the discoms are able to, you know, accommodate this battery power. Otherwise it will be very difficult for us for after two to meet the demands.

Shreya Jai: on the renewable front, there is, I’ll just rephrase the question. with so much renewable energy coming in the grid, it is causing much disruption. there is so much solar and wind in the system, the grid operators do not know how to function around it. Obviously there has been forecasting and planning of renewable energy sources, but battery storage is missing. So during the non solar or non wind hours, coal has to run. And during the solar or wind hours, also coal has to run because renewable, has a low operating ratio than coal and it is fickle. so can you explain that, how the grid needs to be prepared, what needs to be done with so much of renewable energy coming in the grid?

Rajiv Goyal: So that’s what I’m saying. The, you know, something which is abruptly, you know, coming to the grid and stopping because of their nature of the sun and the wind. So it’s not possible the grid operator to maintain the, you know, grid in such kind of flexible, this flexible scheduling. So definitely the solution comes in the, something like the storage system. Now storage system. As of now we have only the battery storage or the pump storage. The third option, people are saying that we can create the LNG and the green hydro and we can run the plants, etcetera. So that way the things can make more stable in terms of the grid. But I, in my own knowledge, I understand that the immediate solution lies only in something around, something around 50 gigawatt capacities come into the grid, in next four to five years, so that the grid becomes more stable and we can actually absorb the you know, unreliable generation of wind and solar. So that is the solution which I see that which can be immediately, you know, built up and put into the system. Otherwise the all other system like PSP and others. So they take a time, four to five years of time. So I don’t think that we can make it much more faster.

Shreya Jai: Sir, I also wanted to ask, you know, there are some extreme weather events that are happening. There have been incidents where there have been sudden load spikes, there have been sudden load crashes. There was a report, and I think you only also posted about it, there was an eleven gigawatt load crash in the northern region, when, there were a thunderstorm, etcetera. What kind of planning is required to tackle these extreme weather events, which are unprecedented because most of them emerge from the climatic and global warming issues that are impacting the weather in this country.

Rajiv Goyal: you are very rightly said that, you know, this disturbing and or the sudden change in the weather conditions. So they are creating a lot of, you know, for the grids. Sometimes the demand is increasing very fast, sometimes the demand is crashing. And, Mister Soni has actually done the workshop also. I mean, I am not, you know, kind, of knowledgeable, person that terms. but again, this eleven gigawatt actually crashed, because of the disturbance in the champa kuchtra line, not because of the weather, but again, surprising, surprises which are coming through the weather changes. we cannot say, now that, surprises because every year now if you see the last six, seven years, which I can, remember from 2016 or 17, so we are seeing almost eight to ten days or twelve days in our country, in different parts of the country, that sudden changes are coming up and their changes are very, very huge changes. And, you know, the predictions are also not coming so fast. So this should need to be, you know, need, to be, include in our planning now. So now no more we can say the, you know, the changes, make changes, were surprised. So the surprises have become, you know, normal, kind of thing now. And definitely the power grid. And, the experts are doing a lot of other things and, I mean, they will be able to answer your queries on that grid stability. But yes, the changes are going to be, you know, common every year, and they may increase from eight days to 18 days also. No, no one knows it very well.

Shreya Jai: Got it. and this is, my last question, and you can elaborate on it. People keep talking about the 2012 blackout, and that is something that has not been erased from anyone’s memory. Is the indian grid now so robust that there will be no repeat of a 2012 blackout which darkened the northeast and the western region in the country?

Rajiv Goyal: I think, indian, engineers. So they need appreciation for this. .20,212. Yes, it was a kind of black day on the, this, network, you know, that gone into the outages, entire country. but after that, we are now, you know, there were a lot of, you know, frequency, you know, like on that eleven mega, 11,000 megawatt had gone. And the frequency, was something, you know, changed very fast. But again, the grid has become very, very robust and a lot of, you know, technical people and they are working on the grid and they are maintaining the grid. So now we can say that we are among the top, you know, some two, three kind of country where such kind of things are happening. Otherwise in most of the country we will see that like very recently I was reading that in the US the grid was, you know, failed, some part of that area. So, but we are maintaining the grid. So it is a huge, huge services by the power grid and their officers to this nation. They are bringing a lot of capacity also and flexibility in the grid also. So it’s a huge services to the nation.

Shreya Jai: Right. Anything for the state front that you might want to highlight here. You did mention a lot of steps that the states need to take. The state power distribution companies also need to take. but coming back to the weather point, you know, such extreme events usually expose the lacunas in a power grid system. I said that the last was my last question. But if I can quickly ask two questions, one you know, extreme weather will expose what are the weaknesses in the system. and the other question is that are the states prepared for this? You know, at central level there is definitely a lot of planning happening, but other states prepared for this.

Rajiv Goyal: I think because ca has given a very comprehensive regulations for you know, adequacy plan. Many states have done also. But for that purpose a lot of funding is also required the way one hundred 50,000 crore rupees are going to be invested. So they will definitely bring a lot of relief, to the consumers. But again, the situation which we want, like I said that in the torrent Surat, I had gone there, they are saying that last two, three, four years they have not seen even a kind of flickering on their lights. If we want our India to grow much or we need to, you know, stand something around, you know, the developed country. So at least 200, 300 of our cities where the population is more than 1 million, we need to develop that kind of, you know, network. And that requires a not 150,000 crore rupees. Maybe something around each city will require something around 1500 crore rupees, for development of the network. So either the government of India or the state government, they can fund partly or they can provide loans to the interest free loans to the discomfort for some 50 years of time. Then only we can find this kind of, you know, preparedness. Otherwise it’s very difficult otherwise. So what will happen that every year, the people are saying in the discom also that some 810 days will happen to and They will go away with that. Yes, this is the extreme condition what we’ll do. So it is again the government has to take a call. They have to change the system, the present day system of recovery of the cost from the consumer itself. This way they cannot recover the cost because the tariff will go very, very high. And the only alternative thing is that like they all state government should ask their transmission companies to go public just like PGCL, they should come up with the solutions. Like I said that triple P in the infrastructure development wherein they can provide the, you know, fees for 30 or 35 years to the private sector or they issue the bond, something like 7.36% the SBI had done. But a huge money is required and that huge money cannot be, you know, converted into the cost recovery system. So some way the government has to fund either from the state taxes or from the PPP projects. So that is the way. Or third thing is that they can bring the competitor or the parallel operator. So they should come and invest the money. But infrastructure requirement is very huge because the demand is increasing and the current infrastructure if it is not developed at almost three x the situation are going to worse in many of the cities.

Shreya Jai: No, absolutely right. Thank you for these insights. My last question, not a question but your bet, which year will you bet that India all across all cities will have 24/7 uninterrupted power supply irrespective of rural urban area. What is your bethe?

Rajiv Goyal: the current going? I think that the way power was available only six, 7 hours in 29, ten in villages today I see a lot of states I have seen the power is available 19 to 20 hours and in some of the state they have gone to 24 hours and that has happened in the 15 years of time. I feel that in next 15 to 20 years this kind of situation will come in India also. In India the, at least for the light and fan they will get the 24 into seven supply just light and fan. Maybe not, maybe not agriculture, but other ugs. They will get the 24 into seven in next 15 to 20 years.

Shreya Jai: Very interesting. on that note, I will close this conversation. Thank you so much for talking with the indian NRDR. It was a very interesting conversation which touched upon we touched upon very fascinating points of the power supply chain, how it impacts consumers like you, me and the listeners of the show. So thank you again for your insight. It was a great conversation.

Rajiv Goyal: I’m thankful to you for providing me m this opportunity. And I understand that, there is a huge, huge, potential in India and power sector is going to contribute, a lot for the growth of India. And we all will have the kind of developed country are living today. We will have some kind of living in next 1520 years of time. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Shreya Jai: Amen to that. Thank you so much.

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