Sabahat Nazir
Srinagar, Jul 20 (KNB): The increasing demand for power has caused a substantial rise in burning of CV fossil fuels that has adversely impacted the environment. In this context, an efficient and judicious use of energy resources is of utmost importance. It has been estimated that nearly 61.61 percent given the energy losses of the state can be preserved by implementing end-use energy efficiency and demand side management measures across the state.
Efficient use of energy and its conservation assume even greater importance in view of the fact that one unit of energy saved at the consumption level reduces the need for fresh capacity creation by 2 to 2.5 times.
Further, such saving through efficient use of energy can be achieved at less than one-fifth the cost of fresh capacity creation. Energy efficiency would, therefore, significantly supplement our efforts to meet power requirement, apart from reducing fossil fuel consumption.
The economic well-being of a state is often closely linked to its energy consumption. Although, our state is ranked eleventh in the country as far as total energy consumption is concerned, it still needs much more energy to keep pace with its development objectives. The state’s projected economic growth rate is very low. This necessitates commensurate growth in the requirement of commercial energy, most of which is expected to be from fossil fuels and electricity.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir has a potential of generating more than 20,000 MWs of hydel power of which only 16,480 MWs have been identified, out of which only 1478.70 MWs have been harnessed which shows that only 89.72% of hydel potential is yet to be exploited, it means that only less than 12% is being fully exploited out of this. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is heading to face severe energy crisis in near future given the continued trend of increasing share of petroleum fuels in the consumption of commercial energy. It is bound to lead to more dependence on imports and energy insecurity and the energy intensity per unit of GDP is higher as compared to other states of India. This indicates the inefficient use of energy providing substantial scope for energy savings.
The integrated and holistic approach would have to incorporate a wise blend of investment in the supply side capacity, operational efficiency improvements of existing power generating stations, reduction of losses in transmission and distribution.
Energy conservation avoids wasteful use of energy without much investment. It can be termed as a new source of energy, which when available, can be readily used without any further loss or gestation period. It is the cheapest source of energy. In fact, it is the easiest solution to bridge the gap between demand and supply. (KNB)
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