The majority of the men in this small farming community, which numbers only a few hundred people, were looking for work Dec. 29. Champa Timungpi was one of few survivors. She claims she was beat by police and kicked in her stomach for protesting.
The 25-year old was pregnant at the time and was taken to the hospital for treatment. Tumungpi stated that she had miscarried when she returned home at night. She filed a police complaint.
The village of Nagaon, a lush green area in the Nagaon district that is still unconnected to the grid and where families earn less than $2 per day, has been surrounded by blue solar panels and barbed wire. Armed guards have also been installed.
Azure Power, a solar developer, was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It stated in an email that it legally purchased 91 acres (38 ha) of the village from “recorded owners” and that it is “incorrect” to claim the land was taken.
Timungpi, Timungpi, and other residents of Mikir Bamuni village strongly disagree with the company’s position. They claim that they were denied their rights as tenants or established farmers. Police and local officials didn’t respond when asked.
The dispute, however it is resolved in a district court reflects India’s complicated land ownership rules that are rooted in the colonial era. This dispute also highlights the enormity and complexity of the problems facing India’s nearly 1.4billion people to meet its renewable energy goals over the next decade.
India’s electricity demand will increase more than any other country in the world over the next 20-years. India, unlike most other countries, still needs to lift millions of people like Timungpi out of poverty and build a power grid that is as large as the European Union.
The world’s climate goals will be greatly affected by how India addresses its energy and economic requirements. Due to its dependence on coal and other fossil fuels, India is a major source of greenhouse gasses.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated at the United Nations climate talks last year that India would increase its non-fossil fuels power generation capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030, up from the 104 gigawatts it had at the beginning of the year.
India must increase its nuclear power output by four times, every month, to meet its 2030 goals.
These short-term energy goals won’t help to limit global warming below 1.5 Celsius (34.77 Fahrenheit). This is the temperature at which scientists have warned of severe climate impacts.
India will still find it a daunting task, with investments ranging from $20 billion to $26.8billion, and only $10 billion available, according to a parliamentary committee last month.
There are many global obstacles that prevent renewables from being realized. These include the need to store electricity for times when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Some are global challenges, such as the need to build electricity storage for when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Others are specific to India. For example, the question of who owns land within poor communities and how to realign power systems which have been dependent on coal for many centuries.
Although there is no roadmap for India’s future in renewable energy, experts point to a federal report from last year. It stated that India would get more than half its power from sun and wind by 2030.
However, conflicts are being sparked by large-scale solar and wind projects. Because land ownership at many of the project sites is unclear, this is partly why. Some communities, for example, have used land for generations to graze or farm cattle without any legal rights.
Kanchi Kohli, an Indian environmental researcher at Centre for Policy Research, said that as governments and companies worked to transition away from fossil fuels these conflicts became “collaterals” that needed to be managed.
To make wind and solar projects more financially viable, mandatory environmental impact assessments were omitted. However, environmental concerns remain.
In April 2021, India’s Supreme Court ordered that transmission lines for solar power be underground. This was after environmentalists had reported that the lines were threatening critically endangered Indian bustards. Nine months later, federal officials declared that burying lines for protection of birds would not only be costly but also hinder green energy development. The matter is being heard again by the court.
India could decrease its dependence on large solar farms by installing solar panels on rooftops in cities.
Although the country’s initial rooftop goals weren’t ambitious, it set a 2015 goal of 40 gigawatts of rooftop sun, enough to power 28 millions homes. The sector grew when customers were allowed to send their electricity back to the grid.
The federal government amended rules that prohibited large businesses and industries from sending electricity back into the grid in December 2020. These commercial customers are the largest for India’s cash-strapped power distribution firms, which lost more than $5 billion in 2020.
Vibhuti Garg from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said that distribution companies were losing the best customers because they send electricity back to them in the evening, when demand is highest.
Garg stated, “They were losing money.”
Rooftop solar is too costly for most homeowners because of the high cost of installation. Siddhant, a 30-year-old entrepreneur from New Delhi, wanted solar panels installed on his home. He said, “It just didn’t make sense.”
According to Bridge to India, a consulting firm in renewable energy, India’s rooftop solar was less than 17% as of June 2021. India has not even reached 4% of its rooftop solar targets for 2022.
India’s clean energy portfolio could include wind as another component. Gagan Sidhu, director of energy finance at the think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water, stated that the best sites for wind are those with small turbines made from old technology.
According to an 2017 study by Indo-Germany Energy Forum and India’s Renewable Energy Ministry, India could have a capacity of 1.5 gigawatts by retiring wind turbines that were built before 2002. Experts say it is not clear who will retrofit and pay for the bill.
According to an assessment led by the Global Wind Energy Council, India has a coastline that covers more than 4,670 miles (7500 km). This could allow India to build enough offshore wind farm to supply approximately a third of its 2021 electricity generation capacity.
These are expensive to build and the first such project, the Arabian Sea wind farm in 2018, is still not under construction.
