India’s Renewable Energy Transition: Clear on Targets, Slow on Jobs
Siddharth Sareen
What can the US learn from India’s renewable energy politics to shape the Green New Deal (GND) narrative? Despite political, economic, and energy infrastructure challenges in sub-national regions, India’s federal government is rapidly rolling out renewable energy across the country. This commentary argues that clear national level renewable energy targets are useful in generating political traction to help enroll numerous stakeholders in favor of energy transitions. But to stick, transition policies must also create jobs linked with renewable energy and build their own robust political constituency.
Energy Federalism and Decarbonization
Both the US and India have federal systems where the federal and state governments must play complementary roles for coordinated energy transitions. Yet federal government and states face different incentives on how to do so. States like Gujarat in India are well-positioned to promote investment in renewable energy because they mine little coal. In contrast, fossil fuel economies of say the state of Jharkhand may find it more difficult to make this transition. Yet, the rapidly falling cost of renewable energy, especially photovoltaic solar, creates new opportunities for energy equity, such as the possibility that even the poorest can get access to electricity.
Thus, energy transition can create a substantial co-benefit of local social equity. This is something that needs to be quantified and communicated to the public at large.
When India announced a target of installing 175 Giga Watts (GW) of renewable energy capacity, including 100 GW solar, by 2022, it could well have been considered unrealistic. Yet, during 2015-2018, India has doubled its installed renewable energy capacity to reach 75 GW. How was this achieved? To begin with, the clear focus by the national government mobilized multiple stakeholders including state-level renewable energy agencies, solar developer associations, regulators and energy modellers. India opted for a market-based model and the ensuing competition has created a vibrant solar industry within a short span of time.
But political will provides only a partial story. As the cost of solar has rapidly fallen, economics has kicked in. Solar power has begun to deliver additional energy production at grid parity rates, sometimes out-competing coal-based power. Yet, this rapid expansion has also revealed significant weaknesses. For one, it has generated relatively few jobs, a critical issue in a country facing a mass unemployment crisis. Second, India has not been able to develop a domestic solar equipment manufacturing industry, relying on imports from China. Third, India has struggled to achieve small-scale, distributed solar growth; large companies drive the energy transition. Finally, given its galloping energy needs, the expansion of coal-based electricity continues.
Setting Targets for Energy Transitions has Cross-Sectoral Effects
How can the Indian experience inform GND’s policy translation in the US? First, such a target must be explicitly linked with specified job growth, backed by sub-targets regarding which regions and segments (manufacturing, deployment, maintenance) these jobs are to come up in. India’s renewable energy target was initiated top-down, and employment-related aspects have only emerged latterly. A planned focus on jobs can enable re-skilling, capacity-building and the coordinated emergence of ancillary services.
Second, the energy transition must take place with increased domestic capacity for solar equipment, including new areas such as energy storage. Without this, the US will not be able to capture the employment gains from energy transition and therefore labor unions and other groups might not view it favorably. Third, a national renewable energy target must address synergies and trade-offs at sub-national scales, thus reflecting a multi-scalar understanding of resource distribution. For instance, who benefits from large-scale solar parks, who from rooftop solar and community energy, and what sub-targets can ensure desirable outcomes in terms of social equity? India’s 100 GW solar energy target includes 40 GW small-scale solar, but uptake in this segment has been slow.
Finally, renewable energy growth targets must be accompanied by explicit national commitments for just fossil fuel contractions. Here, India is not an exemplary case, as it continues to expand fossil fuels like coal. By contrast, carbon budgets and National Climate and Energy Plans of European states merit close attention; these institute strict carbon emission reduction targets and timelines, often with emphasis on discontinuing fossil fuels.
Targets but along with Industrial Policy
What the Indian experience does reveal is the importance of using national level targets as useful symbols for stakeholder mobilization. Ideally, along with national level targets, states and cities should also set energy transition targets, spawning requisite sub-national regulations and policies for renewable energy uptake. Renewable Purchase Obligations in Indian states and Renewable Portfolio Standards in many US states are already driving target-based annual renewable energy increments. Examples of sub-national decarbonization targets have begun to emerge in places like California, Washington DC and New York; a national target would enable their proliferation. This is an important and timely lesson for public administration research: the extent to which stakeholder mobilization behind any policy is facilitated by a clear overarching narrative with quantifiable targets.
But targets alone will not do the job in the long run; concrete benefits must flow that create constituencies for sustained policy success in the future. This is where Indian’s energy transition risks running into trouble: lack of linkages with the domestic manufacturing sector. It would have benefited from a more foresighted, employment-centric approach to renewable energy expansion. For GND to succeed, it must outline a plan for how the energy transition will create domestic jobs and how it will help fossil fuel dependent sectors make a just transition to a low carbon economy. Such a framing of targets backed by clear gains for stakeholders who drive the energy transition is key to a GND that can generate political traction and feed off its own success to enable sustained action.
Siddharth Sareen is a researcher at the Department of Geography and the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation, University of Bergen, Norway.