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Green Energy Corridor planned to carry ´intermittent´ solar and wind power from producers to consumers efficiently, is yet to catch up with the pace of capacity creation.

Renewable energy certificate (REC) mechanism, a market-based instrument introduced in 2010 to promote renewable energy and facilitate compliance of renewable purchase obligations (RPOs), has not received an enthusiastic response from the obligatory entities till recently.

Success of the RPO policy primarily depends on ensuring that obligated entities comply with this mechanism. This can be enforced through stricter compliance regulations and penalties for non-obligating entities. Possibly, if non-compliant entities can be mandated to purchase REC´s corresponding to their obligation for a calculated period of around 6 months - 1 year in the past, this may support clearing out of the current pending REC´s that are lying unredeemed.

The Power Sector has the lion´s share of 20 per cent in the industrial debt of Rs.26 trillion (lakh crore) in the country as of August 2016, followed by metals and metal products (16 per cent), roads (7 per cent) and textiles (7 per cent), and these four sectors account for about 50 per cent of the gross credit deployed in industries

After enduring two consecutive years of drought, the monsoon in India has been recorded as ´normal´ in 2016, at just 3 per cent below the long term average. The monsoon, which spans from June to September, is said to be normal when rainfall is between 96-104 per cent of the long term (50 year) average of about 88 centimetres

India´s hydro power generation capacity is mostly concentrated in the Himalayan regions, and these generating stations are fed from the glaciers. Due to this reason, the hydro power sector did not see a significant uptick at a country level as would be expected by many. At a state-level, however, many hydro-power rich states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala etc., have benefitted.

What I will prefer is, as usual the mines getting affected by monsoon has been the root problem again. For many mines, the dispatches have been drastically low. As a result many power plants have been asking for more and more coal from alternative sources

The Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC) has notified the revised standards for coal-based Thermal Power Plants (TPPs) in the country in December 2015, with the primary aim of minimising pollution, in line with the country´s intent/commitments made at CoP21 at Paris last year.

New thermal plants deploying super-critical technology contribute significantly to reduction in CO2 emissions. The focus for coal-based power sector should be efficient management, especially in the areas of Plant Load Factor (PLF), efficiency improvement, pollution control, water consumption and ash utilisation