Mr. Anil Sardana is the CEO and Managing Director of Tata Power. An electrical engineer from Delhi College of Engineering, University of Delhi, India, with a postgraduate diploma in Management. Mr. Sardana brings with him over three and one-half decades of experience in the power & infrastructure sector having worked with companies like NTPC Limited, BSES (prior to it becoming an ADAG group company), Tata Power Delhi Distribution (erstwhile NDPL). Mr. Sardana served as the Executive Director (Business Development & Strategy) for Tata Power from 1 March 2007 to 3 August 2007 and continued to be on its Board till 1 July 2008. Mr. Sardana was also the Managing Director of Tata Teleservices Limited for over 3 years from 2007 to 2011.
1. As the largest integrated power company in India, how is Tata Power positioning itself to meet India’s growing energy demand?
With the growing Indian economy and the likely rise in power demand, Tata Power aims to nearly double its generation capacity to 20,000 MW by 2025. The company also aims to ensure sustainability of not just the business, but also of the environment. Hence, Tata Power has set itself a target of having 30-40% of its installed generation capacity operating on non-fossil fuel based sources by 2025, raising it significantly from the current 20% and faster than India's Nationally Developed Commitment to be reached by 2030.
Tata Power is a century old organisation and has been a pioneer in bringing newer technology to India. It has been the lead adopter of technology in the country and has brought in technologies such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), 500 MW thermal unit, 800 MW super critical unit, and distribution and outage management systems (DMS/OBS).
As an integrated utility, Tata Power is targeting increasing its power distribution customer base to 2.5 million consumers, by supplying 5 GW of power through greener distributed generation options. In order to ensure a reliable supply chain, Tata Power has investments in fuel resources in Indonesia and has securitisation of long term fuel resources as one of its key targets. Tata Power is also planning for 10 times growth in value added businesses such as power trading, solar EPC, O&M services etc.
2. What investments are needed so that India can achieve its targets of a renewable capacity of 175GW and 24/7 electricity for all by 2022?
India, as a responsible global citizen, has taken ambitious targets for its renewable generation. The investments required to achieve this capacity installation target would be more than US$150 billion. It needs to be kept in mind that renewable generation sources face variability issues and there needs to be investment – not only in the installation of renewable generation sources, but also in associated power storage technologies which can help balance the variability and optimally utilise transmission capacities.
In order to ensure power for all, investments need to be made in the development of Distributed Decentralised Generation (DDG) technologies to provide off-grid supply in the areas with no grid connectivity. Another aspect that needs to be addressed is reducing technical and commercial losses of power distribution utilities. Investments in areas like digitalisation, smart grid systems and smart metering solutions could help minimise these losses. Reduction in losses, improvements in collection efficiencies, as well as timely and adequate tariff revisions to make them cost reflective, can help ensure the financial sustainability of India’s electricity distribution companies (DISCOMs) and eliminate the challenges of blackouts and load shedding, thereby providing 24x7 power to all.
There also needs to be investment in training India's manpower to deliver on such targets. Efforts in this direction have been initiated under the Prime Minister's “Skill India” initiative. Tata Power too, in its pursuit of an inclusive and sustainable future, has taken steps towards developing skill sets in the country by setting up Skill Development Institutes at various locations.
3. How does the advent of disruptive technologies impact India’s utilities industry?
The power sector in India is currently on the cusp of a massive change that is expected to be triggered by the advent of disruptive technologies and a new regulatory regime. India is targeting 40 GW of solar roof top generation in the coming years, and net metering could be the greatest incentive for making this target a reality. Along with the addition of renewable capacity, it is imperative that viable storage technology is developed. Utility-scale storage systems have the strength to disrupt the energy economics of the nation by eliminating the variability issues associated with renewables. Technological intervention to develop DDG systems can help unlock massive demand in areas currently not served by the grid and hence upturn the current regulated utility model.
4. Can you share more about Tata Power’s expansion plans and the opportunities you see in the Asian utility sector?
Tata Power builds its expansion plans into its strategic intent, roadmaps and business plans. These plans are based on factors such as growth opportunities, return profile, security of investments and issues with repatriation of funds, as well as broader geo-political circumstances. Based on that, it has identified certain target geographies which represent significant opportunities for growth.
Hydropower is an area of interest for Tata Power and we are evaluating all such opportunities that present themselves. Nepal and Bhutan, along with the northern and north eastern states of India, present such opportunities to develop hydropower generation.
ASEAN countries have also shown rapid development and continue to offer opportunities going forward. Tata Power has investments in Indonesia and is also pursuing business opportunities in other Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam and Myanmar.
5. What are your thoughts on the SIEW 2016 theme “New Energy Realities”?
The global energy scenario has seen rapid changes recently. There has been a paradigm shift in how the world is currently approaching the energy business. The commitment towards limiting climate change, especially post COP21, has brought renewables into the limelight. Renewable generation is becoming a really viable alternative – now that it has managed to become more economically competitive relative to conventional fossil fuels, on the back of declining equipment prices.
The massive and rapid decline in oil and coal prices in the past two years has added far more variables in the energy equations and increased the ambiguity manifold. These factors will need to be considered when framing the policies and plans going forward. Hence, the theme is in keeping with the changes happening in the global energy landscape.