State Energy and Climate Index

Context:

NITI Aayog puts out Energy and Climate Index list.

Relevance:

GS III- Indian Economy

Dimensions of the Article:

1. Background
2. About State Energy & Climate Index (SECI)
3. Highlights of SECI

Background:

• India, the third-largest energy consumer and the third-largest oil importer is working aggressively to provide affordable energy, ensuring energy access to all and ensuring high efficiencies in the operations.
• The intent to provide energy security to its 1.3 billion people will have far-reaching impact on India’s energy portfolio as its embraces clean energy pathways.
• India has strengthened its position in the market not only as a popular consumer but also as a transforming nation with some outstanding far-reaching agendas like increasing non-fossil fuel based installed electricity capacity of the country by 2030 to 500 GW, reducing the emission intensity of its GDP by about 45  percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
• The per capita energy consumption of India is one-third of the world average.
• The energy sector contributes to about 75% of the total greenhouse gas emissions of the country.

About State Energy & Climate Index (SECI)

• It measures the state’s efforts for improving the energy sector.
• The index has been designed to assess and identify the scope for improving the performance of states and to help them efficiently manage their energy resources.
• This will provide the states and concerned central ministries/departments with a ready reckoner of valuable information which in turn would empower them to formulate and implement suitable policies.
• The index has a preliminary set of 27 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) covering 6 parameters
  • DISCOM’s performance
  • access, affordability & reliability of energy
  • clean energy initiatives
  • energy efficiency
  • environmental sustainability
  • new initiatives

Objectives

• Ranking the States based on their efforts towards improving energy access, energy consumption, energy efficiency, and safeguarding environment;
• Helping drive the agenda of affordable, accessible, efficient and clean energy transition at the State level
• Encouraging healthy competition among the states on different dimensions of energy and climate.

Highlights of SECI:

• The States have been categorised based on size and geographical differences as larger and smaller States and UTs. The index is based on 2019-20 data.
• Gujarat, Kerala and Punjab have been ranked as the top three performers in the category of larger States, while Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were the bottom three States.
• Goa emerged as the top performer in the smaller States category followed by Tripura and Manipur.
• Among UTs, Chandigarh, Delhi and Daman & Diu/Dadra & Nagar Haveli are the top performers.
• Punjab was the best performer in discom performance, while Kerala topped in access, affordability and reliability category.
• Haryana was the best performer in clean energy initiative among larger States and Tamil Nadu in the energy efficiency category.

The detailed rankings of the States/UTs under SECI are given in the following tables;

Score and Ranking of Larger States:

Score and Ranking of Smaller States:

Score and Ranking of Union Territories:

-Source: The Hindu