Emission Mitigation and Energy Security Trade-Off: Role of Natural Gas in the Indian Power Sector

Nandini Das, Shyamasree Dasgupta, Joyashree Roy, Oluf Langhelle and Mohsen Assadi
Additional contact information
Nandini Das: Global Change Programme Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India
Shyamasree Dasgupta: School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi 175005, India
Oluf Langhelle: Department of Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, 4021 Stavanger, Norway
Mohsen Assadi: Department of Energy and Petroleum Engineering, University of Stavanger, 4021 Stavanger, Norway

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 13, 1-17

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: natural gas; coal; energy transition; sustainability; energy security; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/13/3787/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/13/3787/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:13:p:3787-:d:581007

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().