A blueprint for India’s energy future

Abstract: India needs reliable access to clean, affordable energy to power homes and businesses and also to power cars, buses and other forms of transportation. Our energy demand exceeds supply, energy imports are expensive and in limited supply, access to reliable power supplies is intermittent and the health impact of using fossil fuels is enormous. India’s energy policy based on 1) the use of fossil fuels, 2) the use of a national power grid driven by a few, large power generation units and 3) subsidizing the use of power is handicapping our economy, degrading our health and threatens our country’s future. We offer a comprehensive solution to these core problems and a powerful vision of world leadership in clean, renewable energy ensuring the goal of ‘Swacch Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’. The key components of the solution are –

1. The use of hydrogen fuels cells for power generation, power storage and to power a new generation of electric cars, buses, 2/3 wheelers that are cleaner, more efficient and do not waste power

2. A hydrogen economy that generates unlimited hydrogen from multiple clean, renewable sources, provides storage, transport and dispensing of hydrogen

3. Enhancing our current power grid with smart micro-grids that generate, supply and store energy from multiple clean, renewable sources providing clean, cost-effective, reliable power for every home in India and eliminate power losses

4. Government commitment to support this effort with incentives, subsidies and taxes on the use of fossil fuels

Several countries (USA, Germany, France, S Korea, and Japan) and companies (Toyota, Daimler Benz, Hyundai, and GM) have made great strides in this direction. The technologies needed for much of this is proven. Yet, additional work remains in improving the cost-effectiveness of certain technology components and processes. Indian scientific institutions and industry are capable of developing localized solutions and benefit from this unique opportunity to provide world leadership. We offer a draft roadmap for making this a reality and would like to work with the government to finalize this.

Proposal: Our nation’s energy needs and use of fossil fuels to power our homes, offices, cars, buses, 2/3 wheelers exceed our supply, impose a huge burden on our economy and are taking an enormous toll on our health and environment. The size of our nation and our rapid growth aggravates the national energy challenge and threatens our future.

Figure 1. India’s energy challenge and root causes Our vision for the nation’s future is simple –

1. Eliminate dependency on and imports of foreign oil, strengthen our global financial position (est. annual $200B savings) and currency

2. Create new industries, companies, jobs and establish global energy leadership with business, technology and government innovations

3. Generate all the power needed without use of fossil fuels 4. Eliminate use of fossil fuels for road transportation – replace IC engines with

fuel-cell electric power-trains. 5. Dramatically reduce national greenhouse gas emissions, reduce climate

change impacts, improve public health, save lives and reduce health care burdens

6. Ensure every Indian, independent of location, has reliable access to adequate clean, renewable, affordable power

7. Eliminate loss and waste of power (est. 35% loss) transferred over the grid or power used in transportation vehicles

8. Double the efficiency of converting fuel to energy in cars, buses and 2/3 wheelers

A renewable solution to our energy focusing on the root-causes (burning fossil fuels, the current power grid architecture and energy subsidies) will effectively resolve the national pain points and require that we:

Replace fossil fuels based transportation (cars, buses and 2/3 wheelers) with hydrogen fuel-cell and battery electric vehicles

Hydrogen production, transport and storage becomes central to the new energy architecture

Enhance the current power grid with a ubiquitous inter-grid (grid of grids) of smart micro-grids with renewable power sources – wind, solar, fuel cells, natural gas (with carbon sequestration) and biomass complemented with power-to-gas energy storage and consumer connections

Establish energy efficiency as central to public policy with incentives and penalties for non-compliance

Just as coal was central to the industrial age, hydrogen will be central to the clean, efficient post-industrial future. Hydrogen piped in to a fuel cell generates clean electricity, simply and efficiently, and can store electric power for reuse and transported. It is safe. It is being used in the USA, Europe, Japan and S Korea for transportation (cars, buses, motorcycles, and fork-lift trucks) and to power homes, offices and feed power back in to the grid. A fuel cell, fed by hydrogen, generates electricity as long as hydrogen is supplied, with heat and pure water as waste. Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) like battery electric vehicles (BEV) generate excellent acceleration, use regenerative braking, consume no power when traffic halts and have zero toxic emissions. Unlike BEVs, they can be refueled in minutes and currently can go 300 miles on a tank of hydrogen or even power a typical home for a week. According to US government and industry sources, hydrogen would be available as low as $1 per gallon equivalent or less once it is mass produced and distributed as gasoline (US $4+/gallon today). Toyota recently announced a December, 2015 US ship date for the mid-sized Mirai with a base sticker price of $57,500. The Mirai can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 9.0 seconds, and can go from 25 to 40 mph (to pass other vehicles) in about three seconds.

Figure 2. Toyota Mirai Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Automobile

Meanwhile, Honda announced it will release its fuel cell car, the FCX Clarity FCEV, in 2016. Hyundai, which began leasing its Tucson FCEV in June, pledged to produce 1,000 units this year. Daimler AG and GM have also made commitments to ship FCEVs. The US, Germany, Japan and S Korea have invested in hydrogen refueling stations as part of each country’s goals to have a number of zero-emission vehicles on the road. California is expected to build 28 stations by the end of 2016, bringing the state's total to 48 stations. Ulsan in South Korea, Fukuoka prefecture in Japan and Grenoble, France are cities termed hydrogen cities for their focus on hydrogen use and research in aspects of the hydrogen economy. The EC proposed €1 4 billion (US$1 8 billion) to fund its fuel cell program, FCH JU, until 2024–a 27% increase over the last phase. Germany, UK, France, Norway, Denmark have made major investments in this area. Japan’s 2013 RD&D budget for fuel cells and hydrogen was almost double the 2012 budget, at ¥36.83 billion (US$363 million). We should plan for a hydrogen economy which includes production, distribution and storage of hydrogen in as ubiquitous a manner as gasoline today with one difference – hydrogen would be produced at a wide range of locations from which tankers and pipelines would transport the hydrogen to refueling stations for vehicles and for use by stationary power generation locations – not unlike today’s captive power generation units. Hydrogen would be piped, using natural gas pipelines, as a gas under pressure or in liquid form in cryogenic containers. Hydrogen would be produced at major power generation centers (using nuclear power for high-temperature thermochemical/electrochemical processes, hydroelectric powered water electrolysis and natural gas driven steam reforming) and also in a distributed manner using electrolysis with electricity from renewable sources (wind, solar) and biomass/biogas conversion to hydrogen as required. Hydrogen can also be produced as part of a power to gas measure to store excess

power in the grid. Use of biomass/biogas for hydrogen production provides a business incentive for proper disposal of recyclable waste in rural areas and reduce emissions. Intelligent power distribution is central to energy policy. An ‘inter-grid’ or grid of community smart micro-grids linked to current primary power sources offers a scalable, intelligent way to better serve the energy needs of the nation. Micro-grids are power grids operated by and serving a small community comprising

Clean, renewable power sources (fuel cells, wind, solar) Hydrogen generation using biomass and electrolysis systems ( to

power fuel cells or stored for FCEVs at refueling stations) Consumers such as homes and office buildings

A “smart micro-grid” includes intelligent software to monitor, predict, manage and optimize energy supply & demand for a community power grid.

Figure 3. Smart Micro-grids Smart micro-grids do a better job of matching demand and supply at the community level using predictive analytics, reduce cost by smarter scheduling of power delivery and storage, reduce peak hour demand on the central grid and adjust to vagaries of wind and solar power by storing power as hydrogen. The global market for hydrogen economy products and services is huge and will create an industry estimated to be $8.6B and 1m new jobs in 2030 and $70B with 7m jobs1 by 2050. This is a leadership opportunity India cannot ignore. Energy efficiency and use of clean, renewable fuels must be legislated. This must be a national resolve with a combination of subsidies, tax incentives, carbon credits and strong punitive actions for non-compliance. We offer a draft roadmap of next

steps that must be discussed with government and experts and finalized. These steps would include:

Start small, learn, extend to other villages, towns, cities - validate direction in a specific town with an urban and rural populations e.g., fuel-cell powered buses, community micro-grids

Establish centers for research at IITs and other institutions for key parts of the technology – hydrogen generation, transport, storage, dispensation, fuel cell design and production, smart micro-grids

Form tie-ups with countries and companies with related expertise to share technologies and expertise

Industry involvement with grants to set business goals, develop innovative, related products, services and drive down costs

Policy changes (taxes, subsidies) to incentivize transition to a new clean, renewable energy based economy

Work with government and experts to build detailed roadmap The road to energy independence and establishing a foundation of clean, renewable energy is neither simple not easy. It will require courage, resolve and determined effort to establish the promise of the generation that freed this great land. Can we afford to do this? More importantly can we afford not to. References: 1. Based on Japan government projections Author: Ram Mohan (ram@singularventures.com) is an Advisor/Technology Development Initiative at IIT, Kanpur