Towards Clean Energy Kasturi Venugopal Director Kasturi and Sons Ltd

Just 45 years of sinning Electricity generation in Tamil Nadu until about 1908 was confined to a few tiny plants in Tea Estates run on water power and to a small hydro electric station at Kattery near Coonoor. The first large hydro electric power station was constructed at Pykara and commissioned in 1933 with an original installed capacity of 70 MW. The first thermal power plant was commissioned during 1971 at Ennore, Chennai with its first unit of 60 MW capacity.

India’s brave stand on carbon emissions India’s per capita carbon emissions are among the lowest in the world “We have not come here to discuss targets or accept internationally enforced targets on us” “We can assure the world that at no time, our per capita emissions will exceed that of the developed countries” “If the developed countries make deeper cuts, that will be an incentive for us to move at a faster pace” Dr Manmohan Singh at G8 summit in July 2007:

The Hindu July 16, 2007

LEDs are even better

Efficiencies may be improving Generation of electricity April 2015-January 2016 grew 4.6 per cent as against 9.4 per cent the previous year Yet the energy deficit contracted to 2.2 per cent from 3.8 per cent Peak power shortage dropped to 1.9 per cent in January 2016 from 3.1 per cent a year ago

Modi’s 175,000 MW of renewables

Tamil Nadu’s early start into wind TNEB ventured into wind generation in the 1980s and 120 units with a total capacity of MW was commissioned in the period Now wind capacity is 7,500 MW (active during the monsoon) The Tamil Nadu electricity grid capacity today Conventional (coal, petrofuels and nuclear)11,563 MW Renewables (hydro, wind, solar and biogas) 10,900 MW

Wind and solar need some indulgence Two to three billion units of energy lost last year because of backing down of wind turbines in Tamil Nadu