Shuchita Jha

India Energy Security Scenarios (IESS) 2047 released by NITI Aayog allows users to track the impct of green initiatives in the country and help design new stratergies based on predictons

While India is on a mission to cut down its carbon emissions across industries to achieve net-zero by 2070, the current predictions by the revamped version of India Energy Security Scenarios 2047 (IESS) to assess the impact of green energy policies of the Government of India released by the NITI Aayog on Thursday, do not seem to fall in line with its plans.

The open-source tool predicts that India’s total Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will rise to 9602.48 million tonnes in 2047 from 2685.73 million tonnes in 2022. This is a rise of around 257% in 25 years.

_{The images on the IESS 47 platform show that CO2 emissions in India will rise from 2685.73 million tonnes in 2022 to 9602.48 million tonnes in 2047}

The highest increase of around 363% will be recorded by the industrial sector as the emissions will rise from 1021.31 million tonnes of CO2 in 2022 to 4726.82 million tonnes in 2047. This will be followed with a 251% rise in emission in electricity generation. The emissions from refineries will see a rise by over 200% while those from the transport sector will rise to 1018.06 million tonnes in 2047 from 361.75 million tonnes last year, a 181% rise in 2047.

Developed by IIT Bombay, the toll allows users to assess the demand and supply of energy in the country along with analysing emissions, cost, land, and water requirements till 2047. The baseline for computing has been standardised at 2020 and calibrated up to 2022.

Rise in emissions across various sectors, as predicted by IESS 2047

1. Industry: 362.84%
2. Electricity: 215.09%
3. Refineries: 206.47%
4. Transport: 181.25%
5. Telecom: 99.46%
6. Fuel Production: 82.20%
7. Cooking:77.26%
8. Agriculture: 60.58%

IESS 2047 has predicted that India’s demand for electricity will rise from 1314.19 Terawatt hour (Twh) in 2022 to 6041.5 TWh in the next 25 years. 

The import dependence for energy security from gas, oil, coking coal and non-coking coal will also see a rise. While oil dependence will rise from 87.46% in 2022 to 92.61%, it will be the rise in coking and non-coking coal from 30.54% and 58.88% in 2022 to 76.91% and 86.32% in 2047 respectively which needs to be looked out for. However, the import dependence on gas will increase by 10% in the next 25 years.  

The tool can help ministries and departments develop a range of energy transition scenarios to achieve net-zero as it can compute several permutations and combinations of net-zero pathways.

The IESS 47 will reduce the country’s dependence on external agencies for these data predictions as it can compute the energy needs and estimates of the country, facilitating the transition to net-zero by 2070 as it incorporates and analyses several policies related to alternative energy resources like Green Hydrogen, Energy Storage, Renewable Purchase Obligations, PM-KUSUM, offshore wind strategy, Electric Vehicle policy, Energy efficiency.