India needs to sustain a 8% to 10% economic growth to eradicate poverty and meet its economic & human development goals.
Such economic growth need access to clean, convenient and reliable energy for attaining the human development goals.
To deliver a sustained growth of 8% till 2031,India would, in the very least, need to grow its primary energy supply by 3 to 4 times and electricity supply by 5 to 7 times of today's consumption.
By 2031-32 power generation capacity would have to increase to 778095 MW and annual coal requirement would be 2040 mt, if we don't take any measures to reduce requirement. Along with quantity the quality of energy supply has to also improve.
This has to be accompanied by demand side management. Lowering energy intensity of GDP growth by ensuring higher energy efficiency is key to energy security. India's energy intensity of growth has been fallen to half of what it used to be in the early seventies. Currently India consumes 0.19 kilogram of oil equivalent per dollar of GDP expressed in purchasing power parity terms.This is equal to the energy intensity of the OECD and better than the 0.21kilograms of China, 0.22 kilograms of the US and a World average of 0.21. But there is some contries with lower energy intensity, which indicates that there is still scope for improvement.
