Emission Mitigation and Energy Security Trade-Off: Role of Natural Gas in the Indian Power Sector
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
Permanent lenke
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2762314Utgivelsesdato
2021-06Metadata
Vis full innførselSamlinger
Originalversjon
Das, N., Dasgupta, S., Roy, J., Langhelle, O., & Assadi, M. (2021). Emission Mitigation and Energy Security Trade-Off: Role of Natural Gas in the Indian Power Sector. Energies, 14(13), 3787. 10.3390/en14133787Sammendrag
India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) aim to increase the share of non-fossil fuel, especially renewables, in power generation. But at the same time, it mentions that coal is likely to dominate the power generation in the short and medium term to meet the increase in demand and support the intermittency of renewable energy-based power generation. Thus, additional efforts to transform the thermal power generation to a more efficient and less emitting one in the near term by increasing the use of natural gas (a fossil fuel with a lower emission factor than coal) may be planned towards achieving India’s additional mitigation commitments. The paper presents the implications of a proposed increase in the share of natural gas in thermal power generation of India by looking into the trade-off between emission mitigation and energy security. Along with a Reference Scenario, three alternative emission scenarios are proposed to understand the likely impacts of increased penetration of natural gas in power generation on India’s projected emission profile up to 2050. Results suggest that higher mitigation potential can be achieved through fuel-switch in thermal generation and technological up-gradation to enhance energy use efficiency. The energy security due to the increased share of natural gas imports can be dealt with by diversifying import sources. Shifts can achieve this in the emphasis on long-term contracts.