A bimonthly newsletter featuring CSTEP commentary, publications, events, and other developments.

Energy access is a critical challenge in the Indian power sector. The last-mile connectivity to a household or any other consumer is the responsibility of distribution companies (DISCOMs). The remoteness of some locations and the ailing finances of most DISCOMs make achieving 100% electrification in India, challenging. Grid connectivity, power supply reliability, and affordability are the three pillars of energy access. Over the past five years, Government of India's ambitious policies and schemes have supported grid connectivity.

'Back to basics' is the mantra of Zero-Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), a radical indigenous farming technique gaining mass acceptance in some parts of India. Even the Union Budget 2019-20 referred to it as a practice to "double farmers' incomes". States such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Himachal Pradesh have already jumped on the bandwagon. While the practice is gaining momentum, the question is: can ZBNF really be the way forward for sustainable agriculture?

In India, one of the world’s fastest growing economies, most industries still run on fossil fuels. However, the importance of renewable resources for sustainable development is now well-acknowledged, calling for a prompt policy push to make India’s energy sector renewable energy (RE)-driven.

This is the third article in the Empower blog series that CSTEP initiated to breakdown the power sector for a non-technical audience. In the first article, we began decoding the journey of electricity and in the second article we explained the costs incurred in generating electricity — the first step of the journey.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that industrial heat forms about two-thirds of the industrial energy demand and about one-fifth of the global energy demand. Being heavily reliant on fossil fuels, the industrial sector currently accounts for about one-fourth of India’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and it is estimated that industrial heat would alone account for a quarter of the global energy-related CO2 emissions by 2040.

The roads have been cleared for a surge in two- and three-wheeled electric vehicles (EVs). On August 12, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) published a notification allowing the sale and registration of EVs without batteries. The move is expected to increase their adoption rates by dropping the vehicles’ price. In fact, delinking batteries from EVs reduces the upfront purchase cost by 30-40%, making their price comparable to or lower than conventional internal-combustion-engine vehicles.

Gridded satellite products provide (computationally less-intense) opportunities to compare and contrast parameters from different versions/sensors. In the present study, Level-3 (L3) Cloud Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) aerosol products from the most recent release (version 4, V4) are compared with its earlier version (version 3, V3) products. 

•CALIOP global mean V4 total-AOD is higher than the V3 AOD.

Stationary air-quality monitoring is a common component of understanding air-pollution; however, monitoring at one location fails to capture local variations in pollutant concentrations. In locations where emissions and concentrations exhibit fine-scale spatial variability, including in urban environments in India, characterising spatial variability can be helpful for understanding sources and potential solutions for air pollution.