New Delhi: KPMG’s flagship Innovation and Energy Conclave, ENRich 2023, recently took place, with the theme of ‘Growing with Less’, perfectly aligned with India’s ethos of living in harmony with the surrounding ecosystem.
The conference saw leaders commit to accelerate actions to address development and climate challenges, promote Lifestyles for Sustainable Development (LiFE), and transition to low-carbon energy The world of energy is riddled with challenges on multiple fronts, including increasing population, dwindling resources, environmental degradation, and rising food and energy prices. Mr Minister Hardeep Singh Puri (P&NG and H&UA) has focussed on various points.
- India’s energy demand will continue to provide fuel for future economic growth, as it grows exponentially: India is the world’s 3rd largest consumer of oil, 3rd largest LPG consumer, 4th largest LNG importer, 4th largest refiner, 4th largest automobile market.
India will account for 25% of global energy demand growth over the next two decades
- Decarbonization is a pressing theme for the world that we live in today. I see a larger role for the energy industry in this journey. I am happy to note that our oil and gas public sector companies have committed to achieving their net zero emissions – scope 1 and 2 during the period 2038 – 2046.
| Sl No | Company Name | Net Zero Target Year |
| 1 | IOCL | 2046 |
| 2 | ONGC | 2038 |
| 3 | GAIL | 2040 |
| 4 | BPCL | 2040 |
| 5 | HPCL | 2040 |
| 6 | OIL | 2040 |
| 7 | EIL | 2035 |
We are moving rapidly in biofuels, with significant capacity addition underway. India is today the 3rd largest producer and user of ethanol, thanks to nearly tripling production in the past five years. Ethanol blending in petrol has increased from 1.5% in 2014 to currently ~11.70%.
We have advanced the 20% ethanol blending target to 2025-26, ahead by 5 years and approximately 5000 fuel stations are already dispensing E20 fuel. India is encouraging flex-fuel vehicles to drive the adoption of biofuels at scale as it traverses on its journey to move towards E20 blend ecosystem. Recently, India unveiled the prototype of the World’s 1st BS-6 Stage-II, Electrified Flex fuel vehicle that has both a Flexi Fuel engine and an electric powertrain.
In the recently concluded G20 summit, India along with USA and Brazil, formally launched the Global Biofuel Alliance (GBA) to transform the global biofuel landscape. This collaborative platform will facilitate knowledge sharing on key aspects such as best practices, technology development and adaption, policy learnings and market development.
The biofuel alliance presents us with $500 billion opportunity as we expedite the uptake of biofuels globally by facilitating technology transfer।
Whether the targets given to the petrol sector companies will be achieved will be a big question, because we all know that in a democratic system, the government changes every five years and the CMDs and functional directors of the companies change every three years.