In India, The Target is Carbon Intensity

From the New York Times, "India Wants Market to Curb Emissions":

With four times the population of the United States, an economy growing 8 percent to 9 percent a year and surging energy demand, India’s race to become an economic power has propelled it to No.3 on the list of top carbon polluters, after China and the United States.

India’s greenhouse gas emissions are very likely to keep rising as the country tries to lift millions out of poverty and connect nearly half a billion people to electricity grids. But India is also trying to curb emissions growth in its own way, fearing the effects of climate change and spiraling energy costs.

The government is betting big on two market-based trading programs to encourage energy efficiency and green power across the country of 1.2 billion people, sidestepping the kind of emissions trading programs that have poisoned political debates in the United States and Australia.

One is the world’s first national market-based energy efficiency trading mechanism, called Perform, Achieve and Trade. It would set benchmark efficiency levels for 563 big polluters, like power plants, steel mills and cement plants, which account for 54 percent of the country’s energy consumption.

The program would allow businesses that use more energy than stipulated to buy tradable energy-saving certificates, or Escerts, from those that use less, creating a market that the government estimates will be worth about $16 billion in 2014, when trading is to start.

The number of Escerts would depend on the amount of energy saved in a target year.

“The policy road map India is adopting to curb emissions is innovative — something that will make industries look at making efficiency the centerpiece rather than some step that follows an ineffective carrot and stick policy,” said Srinivas Krishnaswamy, chief executive of the green policy consultants Vasudha Foundation India.

A three-year rollout phase for the Perform, Achieve and Trade program is set to start in September and is expected to help India cut about 100 million tons of carbon emissions, the government estimated. The gradual introduction is meant to work out problems in the process for companies to measure and report their energy use.

The other program has already been set up. Under it, India has established a renewable energy certificate trading program for wind, solar and biomass power plants. Green power makes up about 8 percent of energy production in India, while coal generates more than 60 percent, leading to a hefty coal import bill.

Trading of renewable energy certificates, which currently occurs once a month, has picked up as more projects participate, underpinning a government plan to increase solar power from near zero to 20 gigawatts by 2022, about one-eighth of current power generation.

During the May 25 session, 14,002 renewable energy certificates valued at 207.8 million rupees, or $4.6 million, were traded on the Indian Energy Exchange, compared with 260 units at the previous session in April.

But concerns remain about how both initiatives could evolve because of a lack of data and trained manpower, as well as weak penalties for companies that refuse to comply.

“India has an issue of manpower and data,” said Girish Sant, energy analyst at the nonprofit research house Prayas.

Hiring people and building up capacity and institutions “is a long-term game,” Mr. Sant said.

Some analysts also pointed to technical gaps in the Perform, Achieve and Trade program, including the way various units of one company are graded and curbs that allow the renewable energy certificates to be traded only once, limiting the entry of intermediaries or market makers.

“In order to have an effective cap-and-trade or market mechanism that aids desired reduction in energy use, it is necessary to have targets that are neither too easy nor too difficult to achieve,” said a report on the program by Emergent Ventures, a leading Indian clean-energy-project developer and adviser.

But industry observers said it still made sense for India to choose a national energy efficiency program, rather than carbon emissions trading, which requires an absolute emissions cap that would require companies to invest in expensive clean technology quickly. India has already said it does not want to establish an emissions cap.

In a program focusing on energy efficiency, “the target is intensity, so you are basically asking people to reduce their intensity, and that matches the overall target,” said Mr. Sant of Prayas.

The government has pledged to cut carbon intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic output — by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

India’s approach differs from that of its rival, China, which is also looking at promoting energy efficiency but is focusing more on carbon emissions trading. . . .