As India’s cities record a rapidly increasing trend towards
ever more urbanisation and migration, they do present her bigger and bigger energy
problems. Though India is still a predominantly rural place- with maybe 85%
rural population, it is in the concentrated and demanding 'production centre' nature of cities, that they become the biggest consumers of energy, with an
added never-ending demand of energy for households, development, amenities,
commercialisation and industrialisation. Similarly, the cities’ transport and
mobility needs consume substantial amounts of energy and carbon to match the
footprint of more urbanisation. The Climate change phenomena too, do more to
exacerbate the problem of India’s growing energy deficit, that is often sought
to be mitigated by disparate and oftentimes conflicting attempts to address energy
and environmental issues, both at National, as well as at the local levels.
The solution India needs is of course well understood - a
rapid increase in clean and socially benign energy production on the one hand,
and on the other, an approach to overall management of energy consumption,
especially in the municipal sector, whereby big heads like pumping, lighting, heating/cooling,
sewerage and solid waste disposal can be less energy intensive. This
combination of minds in Indian democracy can be so tricky. Therefore, like any democratic
country with development needs, India too needs to immediately bring issues of
energy to the mainstream of public debate, to enable the immediate convergence
between energy governance and democratic local governance, working together
towards a solution for energy management with an integrated outlook to the
energy efficiency of cities and meeting their necessary energy supply.
Amongst many things that are now being actioned slowly but
need to be regulated, is that we need smarter buildings and spaces that
function 24 hours, with minimum embedded energy and long service lives,
accommodating multiple uses in different times and arranged in a fashion that
avoids reliance on cars and polluting motorized transport. We are moving
towards smarter grids, and dual tariffs that can cope with oblique curves in
energy demand, cross-fed by renewable energy sources like solar energy to avoid
peaking loads and hence becoming less reliant on polluting small power plants.
It is a no brainer that if we continue to consume and waste
in the way we have been; there will be no way on earth to support us! India requires
to feed into the global energy agenda, where the world is seen as one, where no
city or country can waste at the expense of others and where a network of
connected concerns come together in a meeting of minds, to tackle global
problems of energy and environment.
