LE A ST COST ENERGY SUPPLY OPTIONS FOR INDIA

At the t ime of independence, India had a very poor infrastructure in terms of energy production and supply, total installed electricity generation capac ity was 1363 MWe . Electricity is the most important component of the primary energy . The average growth rate over the entire period thus has been an impressive . The economics of various modes of power generation depends on local conditions, discount rates and availability of cheap fuels . India is importing coal hydrocarbons as well as enriched uranium. Issues like comparative economics, effect on environment, security of supplies, future technological developments in India will dictate contributions of vari ous energy resources. The objective function of model is to min imize the cost associated with power generation from each resource . This M odel is subjected to various constraints like potential, demand, efficiency, emission and H/C ratio , isolated load an d minimum capacity existing . This model shows that 7 2 % of total requirement can be met by C o a l and Hydro power sources itself. From the renewable side, wind and bio g a s c a n m a ke up to 9% of total power requirement . Due to high running cost , solar importanc e maintains lowest in a ll scenarios. It’s compulsory to find advanced technology to reduce the cost of solar based power generation .