electricity problem
Answers
Answer:
Indian government has set an ambitious goal of integrating large amount of renewable energy generators in the electricity mix by 2022. The estimated investments required to achieve the target is USD 80 Billion. Poor financial health of electricity generation (Genco) companies and distribution companies is a cause for concern for the banking sector. Increasing NPA's in the power sector will further accentuate the problem.
Some of the problems being faced by the Indian electricity power sector are :
Inefficient coal linkages leading to huge losses to the private power generating companies.
Lower than expected growth of electricity demand , leading to reduced PLF of existing plants.
Financial stress to the generating companies. The non-performing assests are valued at 40–60 Billion USD. This is related to 60,000 to 65000 MW of energy generation capacity of the country.
Inefficient distribution companies , leading to lack of initiatives to improve efficiency and bill collection.
Lack of spending on research and development of renewables and transmission technology. The money alloted for the research was used by the government of India to finance transition of states to GST.
Crony capitalism
The discoms have been told to give must-go status to renewable energy sources. In practice its not followed by many countries.
Inflexible grid : We don’t have grid level storage systems to manage peak demand or the fluctuation of the renewable energy systems. Pumped hydro storage systems are being built which are expensive and time taking to build.
In order to understand the challenges being faced by the Indian electricity sector further , some background information is required.The current electricity generation capacity by technology is shown in the figure below :

Source : CEA
Under the renewable energy capacity, wind has the major share , followed by solar and other. The break-up is shown in the figure below.

Source : CEA
An electricity system comprises of three important activities generation, transmission and distribution. Electricity act was passed in 2003 . It liberalized the electricity generation sector. The result was a surge in the number of private players entering the market.According to a CEA report, 112 % of the planned electricity generation capacity was added during the period of 2012–2017. Majority of the new generation system are coal thermal power plants built by the private sector companies like Adani, Reliance, TATA Power etc.

The demand for electricity has not grown at the same pace. Lack of industrial growth has been one of the major reasons for the decline. Industrial electricity demand has been on a decline in the country.This has resulted in low plant load factors for the coal thermal power plants.

Source : POSOCO
Demand Variability
The diurnal, temporal and seasonal variation has led to a problem for the India's thermal power plants. They are unable to provide the necessary peak power and has led to a decrease in their plant load factors.The picture shows variation in temporal demand and periods of peak demand for the entire country.

Source : POSOCO
The picture shows variation in temporal demand and periods of peak demand for the different regions of the country.

Source : POSOCO
Electricity demand in India has a direct correlation with the temperature. It can be seen in the graph below. Electricity demand is plotted with respect to the temperature.With temperatures, increasing every year the scenario would be even more grace. According to estimates, India would need to build 300 plants of 500 MW capacity each to meet its cooling electricity demand by 2030.