After much delay, Maharashtra’s new energy calculator designed to enable better management of the State’s power requirements will be ready by end of this month. The MHSEC-2050, an exclusively web-enabled tool, is based on the central government’s IESS-2047, a brainchild of the NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Commonwealth Office of the U.K. government.
Open source
The draft model of the calculator is complete and will be presented to the State government by consultants M/s ICF Consulting on September 25, senior officials said. Andhra Pradesh is the first State to make such a calculator operational.
The MHSEC-2050 will be an open source tool and enable energy sector planning for stakeholders, including the government, energy companies and even individual users. The tool will cover most areas which impact energy demand and supply in the State. A team of officials from the ICF, NITI Aayog, completed the final round of meetings on March 1, collecting data from the government for the calculator. “The draft of the MHSEC-2050 is ready. This will be presented to us along with different approaches to the State’s energy scenario. This will be followed by a ‘call for evidence’ period for inviting suggestions from the public,” a senior government official said.
Key benefits
The MHSEC will allow policy makers to visualise choices in energy trade-offs, throw them open to the public, help align public opinion with State policy, and assist in long-term planning, officials said. “It will help us develop scenarios based on the State’s economic situation, structural changes, and technological interventions,” said an official.
The calculator will be accessible not only to the government, but also universities, institutes, consultants and civil societies. The tool will provide user-friendly graphic models, easily available data to construct demand and supply scenarios. The Andhra Pradesh calculator even allows users to study energy impact in terms of key macro parameters such as “impact on emissions, cost and the land requirement” for the chosen policy.
Maharashtra’s power generation has been steadily increasing, but so has its demand. The total electricity generated in the State is around 1,50,000 million units (MUs) in 2017-18, while the consumption remains around 3,000 MUs higher, officials said. The State’s per capital consumption, too, is higher than the national average. In 2015, per capita consumption in the State was 962.2 units, as opposed to about 652.5 units across the country.
