SFC Perspectives Paper Rethinking the configuration of technology, politics and institutions to build a 21st century energy system
India must build a 21st-century energy system while simultaneously grappling with 20th-century problems of energy access, leakages, and financially unviable electricity distribution companies. While a cleaner, greener, and job-creating energy future is possible, the path to it will be disruptive and will require a reconfiguration of current technological, political, and institutional systems.
Our work focuses on explaining the entrenched patterns in the Indian energy sector, identifying key bottlenecks to a clean energy transition, and finding solutions to ease its challenges. We collaborate with governments and the private sector to develop frameworks and plans for states to lead and manage the transition, ensure the viability of discoms and coal-dependent regions, and promote the productive use of electricity in rural communities for their socioeconomic development.
Our publications
This also includes publications by SFC team members in their past capacities.
Energy Transitions Preparedness Initiative: Buildings Sector
Deepak Tewari, Rushabh Soni et al.
ETPI | 28 May 2024
This study aims to understand the energy transition preparedness of the buildings sector of 10 states in India and highlights good examples from the states.
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SFC Perspectives on Adaptation and Resilience, Climate Policy, Energy Transitions, and Environmental Governance and Policy
SFC
SFC | 19 March 2024
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Enabling the Energy Transition: Technology, politics & institutions in India’s energy system
Ashwini K Swain, Sarada Prasanna Das, Suravee Nayak, Catherine Ayallore and Navroz K Dubash
SFC | 18 March 2024
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Books and book chapters
Energy Transitions
Uneven and Combined Development and the Politics of Labour in an Eastern Indian Coalfield: Shifts and Changes from Late Colonialism to Neoliberalism
Suravee Nayak
De Gruyter Oldenbourg | 4 October 2023
Taking as an example the Talcher coalfields in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, the chapter shows how uneven and combined development has led to the fragmentation of the local labour forces along the way.
Opinions
Energy Transitions
Seeing India’s energy transition through its States
Ashwini K Swain, Ann Josey et al.
The Hindu | 7 June 2023
States are critical actors in India’s energy transition as there is a multi-tier governance of energy production and usage.
Journal articles
Energy Transitions
Intergenerational Labour and Just Transition in Coalfields
Suravee Nayak
The India Forum | 1 June 2023
In coal mining districts, the nature of labour dependence on working coal may change over time, but generations will continue to rely on the industry for their livelihoods. This leaves coal communities extremely vulnerable to an energy transition.
Journal articles
Energy Transitions
Solar Rooftop Systems and the Urban Transition: Shall the Twain Ever Meet? Interrogations from Rewari, India
Marie-Hélène Zérah and Sarada Prasanna Das
Journal of Urban Technology | 24 February 2023
This study examines Solar Rooftop Systems (SRS) on Delhi’s outskirts. It reveals how current policies miss the mark by not emphasizing the need for a more integrated approach to urban energy planning that transcends the rural-urban divide.
Opinions
Energy Transitions
India’s just energy transition is more than a coal story
Easwaran J Narassimhan, Ashwini K Swain et al.
The Hindu | 6 February 2023
India’s G-20 presidency is an opportunity for New Delhi to negotiate a deal for itself while also shaping international cooperation on just energy transitions.
Journal articles
Energy Transitions
Coal extraction, dispossession and the ‘classes of labour’ in coalfields of eastern India
Suravee Nayak
The Journal of Peasant studies | 8 December 2022
This paper delves into the coalfields of eastern India, highlighting the emergence of multiple, fragmented and hierarchical ‘classes of labour’ in the ‘new public sector’ coal mines of India.
Opinions
Energy Transitions
Why India’s Framework to Bank Renewable Energy Needs To Be Stronger
Catherine Ayallore
The Wire: Science | 22 August 2022
A technological solution to renewable energy source’s intermittency is the physical storage of energy. Thus, storage technologies are critical to a transition to RE heavy energy systems.
Journal articles
Energy Transitions
Migrant Workers in the Coal Mines of India: Precarity, Resilience and the Pandemic
Suravee Nayak
SageJournals | 3 June 2022
Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in the Talcher coalfields of Odisha, the article argues that the labouring lives of migrant workers from marginalised communities have been invisiblised in a ‘shadow economy’ of coal extraction through subcontracting and labour recruitment by local contractors working with state-owned coal companies.
Opinions
Energy Transitions
Band-Aid Solutions Won’t Staunch India’s Power Crisis
Ashwini K Swain and Rohit Chandra
The India Forum | 31 May 2022
Current short-term fixes for India’s power crisis neither address rising uncertainty in the electricity system nor are aligned to a transition towards a 21st century energy system.
