Electricity reforms in the economic strategy of Tamil Nadu

by Akshay Jaitly, Renuka Sane, Ajay Shah.

Electricity is important for economic growth and for India's path to decarbonisation. The field of electricity is deeply sub-national; conditions in each state are different and require ground-up thinking. In a new working paper, Electricity reforms in the economic strategy of Tamil Nadu we make the following arguments:

1. Electricity investments in Tamil Nadu have faltered, and the lack of electricity availability could hamper growth. Tamil Nadu used to be the leader in renewables investments, but these have stalled in recent years.
2. The argument that the state electricity system could just buy electricity -- and doesn't need to generate it -- has limitations. If the discoms find it difficult to pay investors on time, they will likely have difficulties paying out-of-state generators on time as well, and those firms will be swift to cut off supplies. Also, there have been instances when state governments have banned the sale of electricity to out-of-state buyers. Such events impede the purchase of electricity from out-of-state when the market is tight.
3. Given that Tamil Nadu is an export-oriented economy, renewables are an important part of its economic strategy, because exporters are shaped by ESG investments and by carbon border taxes.
4. The status-quo is coming under stress. There are feedback loops through which C&I exit reinforces C&I exit, which undermines the financial viability of the discom.
5. The future of the energy system requires a great wave of investment and risk-taking. What is required is a process of discovery, and not design, where profit-motivated private persons peer into the future, speculate about what might work, and take risks in building businesses that constitute bets about certain technologies and business models. This process requires investibility in the Tamil Nadu electricity system.
6. The problem of electricity is not just a narrow problem within the energy sector; in Tamil Nadu it rises to a greater materiality within the overall economic growth strategy.

The paper offers a feasible and practical path to solutions.

Energy transition investment in India and in the world

by Akshay Jaitly and Ajay Shah.

At a time when the 20th century has returned, in terms of geopolitical conflicts, we should not take our eyes off the climate change problem. CO2 is a global pollutant, and it will be harder than ever to get the world economy to safety, so we will need to make more of an effort.

Measuring energy transition investment in 2021

BloombergNEF builds an important annual statistical picture in the `Energy Transition Investment Trends' report. The 2022 report measures global investments into the carbon transition. They break this down into two groups: the direct energy transition investments, and the investments in R&D for improved technology.

The headline numbers for 2021 are that there was \$755 billion of energy transition investment and \$165 billion in technology development, adding up to \$920 billion. Under `energy transition investment', the sub-components that are tracked by BloombergNEF are (a) Renewable energy; (b) Energy storage; (c) Electrified transport; (d) Electrified heat; (e) Nuclear; (f) Hydrogen; (g) CCS and (h) Sustainable materials.

For the Indian economy, it is largely a story of learning, purchasing and implementing the technology developed elsewhere in the world. As an example, many people all over the world invested in, and took the steps on the journey to, cheap solar photovoltaics. We in India are the beneficiaries by being able to buy solar panels or the machines that make solar panels, without needing to invest risk capital in developing the technology. We also can do M&A, like Reliance Industries’ buyout of solar cell and panel manufacturer REC Solar Holdings for \$771 million in late 2021. Hence, for the remainder of this article we focus on the \$755 billion of energy transition investments (worldwide) in 2021.

The big facts

Of the \$755 billion, there are two large components -- \$366 billion into renewable energy and \$273 billion into electrified transport. But there are also many other things going on (energy storage, electrified heat, nuclear, hydrogen, CCS, sustainable materials), adding up to the remaining \$116 billion.

Investment into the energy transition has grown well. A decade ago, this was at \$264 billion, thus giving an average compound growth of 11% per year in USD.

The report estimates that to get to net zero, these numbers need to triple to 2025 and then double to 2030. Overall, a six-fold rise is required from 2021 to 2030.

The values seen in India

Energy transition investment in 2021 in China was at \$266 billion (out of the total of \$755 billion), and in India it was \$14 billion. The Chinese GDP is about five times larger than India, but their investment in the energy transition last year was 19 times larger than India's.

If we apply the Indian share in world GDP of 3%, the value of Indian energy transition investments should be at \$23 billion. If we relate this to the Indian share in world CO2 emissions of 7%, this should be at \$53 billion. By these two normative yardsticks, then, energy transition investment in India needs to be 1.6 or 3.8 times bigger than it is.

What impedes the energy transition in India?

If we multiply the present value of \$14 billion a year by 6 x 1.6 or 6 x 3.8, we get to the estimated required investment in India for 2030 of \$134 billion or \$319 billion. Such values cannot be obtained from the fiscally stressed Indian exchequer. They can only be obtained from the private sector. But the private sector is still skeptical about energy investment in India (as is evidenced by the relatively low value of \$14 billion in 2021).

The present policy frameworks for the sectors that receive energy transition investments have been in place for decades. Intensification of these frameworks, or better implementation of the present policy paradigm, is unlikely to shift the needle sufficiently. For instance, persisting along this path will mean that electricity in India will continue to be unreliable, expensive and carbon-intensive.

When we look at the landscape of \$755 billion of investment in 2021, it is not, China apart, taking place in a world of central planning; it is in a world in which the government sets up the foundations through which the price system operates, and then the precise decisions about technology and business model are made locally by private persons. This is the key transformation that is required in India. The decision to put up a solar plant or build an electrolyser should be made by an individual looking at the prospective profit, not a government official who puts out a tender. The decision to put up a storage facility should be made by a private person who sees opportunities in a large gap between the highest price of the day and the lowest price of the day.

As we argue in a recent paper, the problems of the Indian climate transition are now beyond the calibrated control of officials. The government controlled system is experiencing substantial stress, owing to the contradictions inherent in it. A centrally planned system is ill equipped to think about technical and business model problems in each square kilometre of India. Government control will tend to push simplistic solutions that will drive up the cost imposed upon society for the energy transition.

The lowest hanging fruit on the coconut tree: India's climate transition through the price system in the power sector

by Akshay Jaitly and Ajay Shah.

The world is projected to emit about 50GT of CO2 per year by 2055. Climate scientists say (net) emissions need to be ended by 2055, in order to avoid catastrophic events with reasonable probability. At present, India is emitting 2.5GT per year with a long term trend growth rate of about 5%. India is the 4th largest source of CO2 in the world, accounting for 7\% of emissions, with emissions that are roughly as large as those of the European Union. In a new paper, The lowest hanging fruit on the coconut tree: India’s climate transition through the price system in the power sector, we engage in strategic thinking about India's decarbonisation.

Decarbonising any economy is a large and complex problem. The electricity sector is a key site of the carbon transition, as it directly makes CO2 (e.g. by burning coal and gas), and because decarbonisation in other areas (e.g. cooking) involves switching away from fossil fuels to electricity. The sector is formally organised, which makes it more susceptible to policy intervention. Thus, in every country, decarbonisation calls for a large modification of the resource allocation in the electricity sector. Technical and business model decisions are required at each location in an economy about the optimal mix of renewables, storage and demand-side adjustment for the zero emissions world.

The Indian electricity sector is poorly placed to perform the required modification of this resource allocation. At present, it is a centrally planned system that is under growing financial stress. The process of private investment in electricity has lost momentum. Resource allocation is inefficient owing to multiple prices and a command-and-control system, rather than one based on producers and users that respond to prices. The command-and-control system works poorly in steady state, and particularly poorly when large changes in the resource allocation are required. By imposing enlarged costs upon the economy, a centrally planned decarbonisation runs the risk of greater political difficulties. The electricity sector is thus the critical choke point in India's climate transition.

Looking forward, the problems of the electricity sector are likely to deepen. Rising Indian emissions in coming years will sit uneasily alongside a decarbonising world. Regardless of the speed at which Indian policy makers might desire a change in course, there are forces reshaping the behaviour of Indian firms which are narrowing the options. Indian firms now operate under international asset pricing, and ESG investment has changed the incentives of Indian firms to favour buying and selling renewables. Some large economies could, in coming years, introduce trade taxes upon the carbon content of Indian exports. This would additionally induce Indian firms to desire reducing emissions in their supply chain. The cross-subsidy system within the electricity sector will come under increasing stress when buyers see renewables inducing some combination of a lower cost of capital, a lower operating cost and reduced trade barriers.

For 30 years now, political and fiscal resources have been expended in periodic incremental reforms of the electricity sector. These have not delivered the desired results. It is unlikely that similar efforts will work in coming years. In the meantime, 2021 is likely to be a turning point in the demands made upon the electricity sector owing to the carbon transition.

The climate transition is one of the most complex problems in Indian public policy and will now be subject to the new commitments made at COP26. A coherent strategy needs to be established and articulated, which can reshape the behaviour of a billion private persons across space and time.

This involves going with the grain of the price system, i.e. stepping away from the command-and-control system. All firms in the electricity sector need to be creatures of the market economy, which constantly reshape technology and business models in response to prices. Such firms have the incentive and the ability to look at the changing landscape of technology, financing and carbon taxation, and solve local maximisations that yield the correct engineering and business solutions all across the country. This distributed intelligence, this self-organising system, processes information better, values profit over conservatism and populism, engages in a process of search with risk-taking where some win and some lose, and avoids the state capacity constraints that hamper the central planning system. It will achieve the required Indian climate transition at a lower cost to the economy when compared with a centrally planned path.

Under an electricity sector that is grounded in the price system, there is a clear pathway to the climate transition: the single instrument of the carbon tax. Following a 5-10 year reform process of the electricity sector, the Indian state would announce levels of carbon taxation for the next 25 years, based on international commitments towards decarbonisation and net zero. Private persons would respond to these numerical values with business and technological strategies that are optimal at every location in the country. Every five years, policy makers would review the emissions, and modify the trajectory of taxes for the coming 20 years. Policy makers would control this one lever -- the carbon tax -- and the decarbonisation of the economy would be achieved through private decisions on the demand side, in generation and in storage.

Without a carbon tax, the union government lacks instruments for carbon policy, and intricate regulatory activities will induce enhanced costs upon the economy. Without an electricity sector that is organised around the price system, the resource allocation will be distorted thus enhancing the economic cost of decarbonisation. The optimal way forward is a combination of electricity regulation at state governments, a carbon tax led by the union government, and a private electricity sector organised around the price system.

While this appears to be an attractive vision, it is also a difficult policy project. Immense effort has been put into electricity reform in the past, by insightful policy makers. These leaders of Indian electricity reform, of the last 30 years, stayed within the strategy of a centrally planned electricity system. Why do we believe that things could work differently today?

There are six aspects in which the present situation is different, which creates a pathway to the fundamental reform that was elusive for the last 30 years: (1) There is greater understanding of the political economy landscape, and it is possible to design bargains where the losers from the reform are compensated. (2) State capacity in regulation is essential for the operation of an electricity sector organised around the price system, and there is now a greater understanding in India of how to establish the objectives and methods of regulation. (3) There is a path to electricity reform, one state at a time, which is more tractable and feasible when compared with grand schemes led by the union government which apply to the entire country. (4) The materiality of climate policy in the international discourse has shifted the political salience of domestic electricity reforms. Alongside this, the domestic policy envelope on establishing more market-led solutions has improved. (5) It is possible to fund the transition. (6) The fiscal cost of upholding the status quo in the electricity sector is likely to rise.