India-led South Asian bloc to drive energy demand in future, climate change playing big role: IEA

New Delhi: The growing usage and push for renewable energy are changing the world of electricity, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that the focus of energy systems is transforming in India and other emerging economies.

According to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook, in the future, the India-led South Asian bloc will be the main player behind driving energy demand. Notably, green energy sources have seen an increased demand in the domestic market of our country. India, as per reports, is currently the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

The country is facing the threats of climate change, and IEA data reveal that India is on the track to turn green. India’s energy demand is increasingly driving the global energy demand, along with other emerging markets like Indonesia.

Tim Gould, Chief Energy Economist at IEA, said, "We see not just a big expansion of renewables, but in our scenarios, India is the single largest source of oil demand growth, the second largest source of electricity demand growth, and the third largest source of natural gas demand growth worldwide. When you look at a broad range of fuels and technologies, there's a sense that if you want to understand global trends, you really need to be paying attention to what's happening in India, and we're certainly very conscious of that."

Economic growth and climate change are driving India's growing energy demand, with both IEEFA and the UN showing India's proximity to a high risk of heatwaves due to the changing climate. As a result, the energy demand in the vast country will only increase in the future.

IEA’s data states that demand for solar and wind energy is rising steeply in India. Also, the data shows that by 2035, one-quarter or more of electricity generation will come from these two sources in the country. However, Gould said, "Solar is an important part of the solution, but it can't do everything. We need to have a balance across technologies, but also make sure that we're building out that infrastructure, building out the storage as well that allows us to make the best use of that solar because in some markets where you've had a big expansion of solar generation, you've also seen a rise in curtailment, and to some degree, that can be economically rational, but if you don't have the grids in place, you risk wasting some valuable resources."

He added, "As air conditioner ownership expands, there are also some new uses, and as countries electrify their transport fleets, or they electrify other new areas of the economy, particularly in the high-tech sector, with data centers and so on. That just adds to the feeling that electricity is, in a sense, the fuel of the future."

Commenting on the need to upgrade the infrastructure, Gould said, "In our view, over the next 10 years, India would need to add something like 2 lakh km of new transmission. One of the things you can observe globally in these trends is that the expansion in investment in generation has not been matched by a similar rate of expansion on the infrastructure side. I think India has done well with the green corridors and the way that it's managed to build out its transmission network, but in a fast-growing context like India, there is a lot more to be done."