POWER SECTOR A STUDY OF INDIA

Abstract

The Indian power sector has the fifth largest electricity generation capacity in the world and the world's third largest transmission and distribution network. The top four countries, viz., Japan, China and Russia together consume about 49 percent of the total power generated globally. The average per capita consumption of electricity in India is estimated to be 704 KW during 2008-09. However, this fairly low when compared to that of some of the developed and emerging nations such as US (--15,000 KWh) and China (--1,800 KWh). The world average stands at 2,300 kWh2. This paper highlights ambitious and goals of Indian power sector owing to which the power sector is poised for significant expansion. In order to provide availability of over 1000 units of per capita electricity by the year 2012 it has been estimated that need based capacity addition of more than 100,000 MW would be required. This has resulted in massive addition plans being proposed in the subsectors of Generation Transmission and Distribution.