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Integrated Regional Energy Planning - Concepts & Approach :

The central theme of the integrated energy plan would be to prepare an area based
decentralized energy plans to meet energy needs for subsistence and development
of alternate energy sources at least cost to the economy and environment.
Centralised energy planning exercises cannot pay attention to the variations in
socioeconomic and ecological factors of a region which influence success of any
intervention. Decentralized energy planning is in the interest of efficient utilisation of
resources. The regional planning mechanism takes in to account various resources
available and demand in a region. This implies that the assessment of the demand
and supply and the intervention in the energy system which may appear desirable
due to such exercises must be at a similar geographic scale. In this regard, the
District is accepted as the appropriate planning level. Kolar District, Karnataka State
is chosen for carrying out present study. Planned interventions to reduce energy
scarcity can take various forms such as (a) energy conservation through promotion
and use of energy efficient stoves for cooking and water heating, compact
fluorescent bulbs in place of ordinary incandescent bulbs, (b) supply expansions
through energy plantations and (c) alternatives - renewable sources of energy such
as micro/mini/small hydro power plants, wind, solar and biomass based systems.
Ecologically sound development of the region is possible when energy needs are
integrated with the environmental concerns at the local and global levels. For this
purpose an integrated planning framework is necessary .

The use of DSS (Decision Support Systems) and GIS (Geographic Information
Systems) for energy planning in developing countries is not as well established in
large government agencies; however there are few research centres where
hydrological and watershed assessments are being studied. Apart from these, energy
planning in India is not an integrated activity. Various government agencies dealing
with different resources, considers only the demand and projects the energy demand
over a period of years without taking in to account efficiency of utilisation, scope for
conservation with technology improvement, exploiting renewable sources.

In this situation, there is a need to develop integrated energy plan taking in to

account spatial variation and seasonal variation in resource availability, energy
demand etc. Apart from these, we attempt to consider decision structure, levels of
decision making and implementation strategies in the regional energy plan.

Survey carried out in 133 villages in Kolar district (covering all taluks, 2500
households) reveals that level of energy consumption and adoption of energy
efficient technologies depends on

(a) level of education of end users of energy,

(b) land holding and finally to some extent
(c) community (our population is diverse, and there is a need to map all these
aspects). This endeavor helps to

(1) Identify hydel sites for electricity generation in a decentralized way,

(2) Assessment of potentials of wind, solar resources
(3) Agro-ecological zonation helps in demarking degraded land, which helps
planners to take up energy plantation to meet the fuel and fodder requirement of the
region,
(4) Spatial mapping renewable energy sources and sector-wise energy demand,
(5) Resource - demand balancing (modelling)

This paper presents a conceptual design for energy system which could meet
demand of all sectors in the region. The proposed design would in principle, supply
enough energy for a sustainable development of a region. The energy planning
endeavor involves finding a set of sources and conversion devices so as to meet the
energy requirements/demand of all the tasks in an optimal manner. This optimality
depends on the objective; such as to minimise the total annual costs of energy or
minimisation of non local resources or maximisation of system overall efficiency.
Factors such as availability of resources in the region, task energy requirements
impose constraints on the regional energy planning exercise. Thus, the regional
energy planning turns out to be a constrained optimisation problem. This exercise
describes an optimum energy allocation based on Integrated Energy Planning
Approach for Kolar District and make a satisfying energy allocation plan for the year
2005, 2010 and 2015. Integrated energy planning developed based on Decision
Support Systems (DSS) approach is flexible, adaptable, ecologically sound and gives
an optimal mix of new renewable/conventional energy sources.

Regional Integrated energy plan (RIEP) is a computer assisted accounting and

simulation tool being developed using Visual Basic and MS Access to assist policy
makers and planners at district level in evaluating energy policies and develop
ecologically sound, sustainable energy plans.

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Energy availability and demand situation may be projected for various scenarios
(base case scenario, high energy intensity, transformation, state growth scenarios)
in order to get a glimpse of future patterns and assess the likely impacts of energy
policies.

Integrated regional energy plan (Fig 1) serves several purposes:

1. As a Database:
Demography (population during 1941-1991)
Natural resource (land use, land cover, forest types, wastelands, agriculture- crop
types, production, yield, irrigation details, horticulture-crop types, residues.
Plantation -area, type (social forestry programme)

2. Maintains energy information: data entry, data append, edit, unit conversions,
querying, data retrieval, generation of reports, generation of graphs, link to spatial
maps (district/taluk/village)

3. Forecasting tool: to make projections of energy supply and demand at 5 years

interval

4. Policy analysis tool: simulates and assesses the effects of alternative energy
Programmes (technical economic, environmental effects).

5. Bibliography: (Abstracts of papers published in journals) and energy database of

other regions.

6. Links to various energy sites: (URL of prominent sites dealing with energy and
environment).

7. Assessment of Renewable energy potential, supply status of commercial

sources of energy: (electricity, oil, kerosene, etc.), Estimation of energy demand of
various sectors and techno economic and environmental assessment of alternatives.
Kolar depends mainly on non commercial forms of energy. Non commercial energy
constitutes 84%, met mainly by sources like firewood, agricultural residues, charcoal
and cow dung, while commercial energy's share is 16%, met mainly by electricity,
oil etc.
The largest single user of bio energy is the domestic sector, followed by industries.
Increased shortage of wood fuels have forced many users to shift to substantial use
of agricultural residues. Bio energy users are faced with limited options of accessible
and affordable fuels.

8. Environment Technology Database: (resources, technology, environmental

aspects, bibliography)

Energy resources database (renewable and non renewable), energy demand

database (sector wise), environmental database, data aggregation, data analysis
(energy scenarios, techno economic analysis) and integrated plan are the various
modules being incorporated in the Integrated Regional Energy Plan. The energy
scenarios module along with energy demand, transformation, techno-economic and
environment module are used (in integrated module) to perform an integrated
energy-environment planning exercise for a region (village / blocks/ taluk / district /
state). Environmental database is used automatically calculate environmental
impacts of energy scenarios.
Scenario analyses aids in creating a picture of the current energy situation and
estimated future changes based on expected or likely plans and growth patterns.
Base case or business-as-usual is based on present population growth,
industrialization, agricultural energy requirement.

It also helps in developing policy scenarios with alternative assumptions such as

(1) Transformation - through introduction of energy efficient devices such as

fuel efficient stoves, improved furnaces, boilers, dryers, compact florescent
lamps etc.
(2) Projection based on high energy intensity (such as rapid
industrialization with an energy demand increase of 20%)
(3) Projection based on state averages (growth in household, industry,
agricultural and commercial sectors)
(4) Introduction of renewable energy technologies (solar, hydro, bio
energy etc.) and agro forestry (conversion of wastelands with locally
accepted species).

Data aggregation allows for coordinated planning at more than one spatial level.
Such as energy scenario can be developed at village level and then aggregated to
the taluk / district level.
Techno-economic analyses provides technical and economic viability of alternatives.
This Programmes draws upon the analytical methodology of "life-cycle" analysis. For
each energy sources and technology option it also traces energy inputs and
environmental impacts.
Integrated module integrates energy supply and demand analysis with energy
scenario Programmes and provides a full range of optimal policy alternatives in a
common framework. This enables the policy maker / decision makers to examine the
critical relationships between supply and demand, land use, bio resource issues,
environmental sustainability and economic development.
The environmental database provides a comprehensive summary of data on the
environmental consequences of energy use and production. This database would be

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linked to the energy scenario programme to provide information on the

environmental impacts of energy alternatives.

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