3. ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Ensuring sustainable energy for all: SDG 7

India is making good progress in its national efforts to meet the various SDG 7 targets. These include to measures to ensure universal access to modern energy, including electricity and clean cooking (SDG 7.1), to foster the deployment of renewables and to increase the share of renewable energy consumption in the global energy mix (SDG 7.2) and to double the rate of energy efficiency improvements (SDG 7.3).

Access to electricity and clean cooking: SDG 7.1 progress and outlook

Electricity access

Universal household and village electricity access 1 has been a key priority for the Government of India (GoI) for the past 15 years (with particular focus on rural areas). In April 2018 the GoI announced that India had achieved its goal of providing electricity to every village in India (600 000 villages). A year later, in April 2019, the GoI announced that it had effectively connected all the households that were willing to do so (26 million), according to the latest government data.2

The Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and the Saubhagya schemes are the two main government policies to respectively complete provision of electricity access for every village and household. The introduction of the Saubhagya scheme3 in September 2017 helped accelerate the rate of household electrification, connecting the last mile. Over 95% of people who have gained electricity access in India since 2000 have done so as a result of grid extension, according to the IEA.

Coal power has been used to supply about 75% of the new electricity access since 2000, with renewable sources accounting for around 20%. Enhancing the use of clean energy will play an important role in ensuring that electrification objectives are in line with delivering air quality improvements as well as reducing GHG emissions.

The access paradigm is, however, changing. Recent mini-grid policy developments show promising signs for enhancing the role of renewables in ensuring electricity access. A draft national renewable energy mini-grid policy was published in 2016 with the aim of developing 10 000 micro-grids and mini-grids with a combined capacity of 500 megawatts.

Based on announced policies in India, the IEA estimates that rapid progress will continue, with the entire population of India benefiting from uninterrupted access to electricity (Figure 3.2).

1The electrification rate can be measured in different ways. India has dual electrification targets that focus on both electrifying villages (a village is considered electrified if 10% of households and community services have access) and households. IEA methodology, however, focuses on the share of the population with access to electricity in line with the UN SDG tracking framework.

2India’s central online tracking of electricity access can be found at: http://garv.gov.in/dashboard.

3Electricity connection to a household comprises drawing a service cable from the nearest pole to the household premises, installation of an energy meter, wiring for a single light point with light-emitting diode (LED) bulb and a mobile charging point. In cases where an electricity pole is not available nearby, the erection of an additional pole along with conductor and associated accessories is also covered. More information is available at: https://saubhagya.gov.in/.

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3. ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Figure 3.2 Proportion of population with access to electricity, 2000-30

Note: STEP = Stated Policies Scenario, a projection based on existing policy frameworks and announced policy intentions

Sources: IEA (2019a), World Energy Statistics 2019, www.iea.org/statistics/; IEA (2019b), World Energy Outlook 2019.

Clean cooking

India is progressing at a slower speed towards the second SDG 7.1 objective – access to clean cooking. Indoor household air pollution from solid fuel combustion for cooking has considerable negative health impacts.4 The share of the population in India using biomass and kerosene declined by 16 percentage points between 2011 and 2018, with exactly half of the total population now using cleaner fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

GoI programmes to support clean cooking focus on increasing the usage and financing of LPG, with the explicit aim of empowering women and improving their health. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) scheme is designed to provide women living below the poverty line with a free LPG connection, subsidised refills and courses on how to use LPG. It has reached tens of millions of women in India over just a few years. The GoI pledged to provide 50 million free LPG connections by 2019, but actually achieved 80 million (which were targeted for 2020) already in 2019. As explained in detail in Chapter 2 on general energy policy, the GoI adopted a range of important policies to better target the subsidies to those who need them, including the Pratyaksh Hanstantrit Labh (PAHAL) scheme and “#GiveItUp”.

However, in 2018 an estimated 680 million people in India still do not have access to clean cooking solutions and primarily rely on biomass for cooking (IEA, 2018b). Based on stated policies, IEA projections indicate that the share of the population relying on the use of traditional biomass for cooking will continue to decline, dropping initially to around 500 million, a third of population in 2030, and a quarter by 2040. In spite of this progress, traditional cooking still imposes a substantial burden on women, in particular, who spend on average nearly 1.5 hours per day collecting fuelwood, equivalent to more than 100 billion lost working hours (IEA, 2017b).

4 Impacts of indoor air pollution in India are estimated at 670 000 premature deaths according to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 (GBD, 2019).

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