Present and Future Power Generation Technologies: Options in Indian Context

Both IEA forecast and WEC's world energy scenarios of 2050 show that fossil fuels will still play a crucial role for both power generation and transport. Coal is going to play an important role in the long run especially for power generation in China and India. India is entering an era of unprecedented change in the way we produce and use energy. The conventional thinking about how energy is extracted, converted, and consumed is being challenged by growing concerns about the environmental impacts of power generation on land, water, air quality, and climate. In the Symphony scenario, the WEC anticipates a large increase of non-CO2 technologies globally, including hydro, other renewables such as solar PV and wind, nuclear and carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, as coal is anticipated to be the backbone for power generation, high efficient thermal power technologies such as Ultra Super Critical technologies (USC) with 700 degree temperature have to be deployed to minimize the effect on environment. Further, thrust has to be given to Solar PV and CSP technologies to tap the renewables to a greater extent.