| | SEPTEMBER 20178Consultants ReviewFOCUS ON DECENTRALIZED DISTRIBUTED GENERATION ­ ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY & IMPETUS BY THE INDUSTRYTata Power established India's first large hydro-electric project in Khopoli, Maharashtra in 1915, the year of its inception. An Electrical Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering, Anil holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management. He brings with him over three decades of experience in the power and infrastructure sector and has worked with companies like NTPC Limited, BSES, Tata Power Delhi Distribution (erstwhile NDPL).By Anil Sardana, CEO & Managing Director, TATA Powerroadly, as we all understand, power is central to the socio-economic development of the country; energy is directly linked to increased income and productivity, and indirectly to better health, education, quality of life - human development in general, is the most plausible solution to address the multifaceted aspects of tackling poverty as well as the incubator of economic growth. At the inception of becoming one of the greatest economies of the world, Central Electricity Authority, Government of India anticipates India's energy demand to increase by four-fold to about 690 GW by 2035. With this, our country stands at this critical juncture to commensurate the rising 4.2 percent energy demand with the energy generation. This directly underlines the fact that infrastructure would be instrumental in imparting elasticity to the supply factor. Presently, India's current energy scenario gives rise to two key challenges for the power sector­ the need to increase the generation capacity and expansion of the current transmission and distribution infrastructure characteristically Indian challenge have mostly veered around last mile issues despite supply side being available. Decentralized distributed generation (DDG) has the potential to solve both these issues, especially in the areas, which are semi-urban and rural.Conventionally, the approach for electrification has been to extend the national grid power plants operated by the national utility. The initial concept for large centralized power systems was focused on economies of scale provided by larger generating power plants, implemented first by developed nations. However, as opposed to the ground realities in developing countries like that of India, owing to the financial, technological, as well as, organizational constraints, extending the central grid to the remote parts of the country is far too expensive and challenging. Specifically, semi urban areas and rural electrification problems are challenging for the centralized utilities BIN MY OPINION
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