Talk:Electricity sector in India

Recent data needed
The data in this article has to be constantly updated. If it is outdated please replace it with current data. Data can be found at http://powermin.gov.in

Vijay Sai (talk) 13:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Per capita consumption - the regions are mixed up (for instance, Tamil Nadu should be in the southern region). Please correct at the next opportunity. _SRR — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.144.196.92 (talk) 18:21, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 17:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Rural electrification Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Uttranchal, West Bengal etc are some of the states where significant number (more than 10%) of villages are yet to be electrified. •	Number of Villages (1991 Census) - 593,732 •	Villages Electrified (30 May 2006) - 488,173 •	Village level Electrification % - 82.2% —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.164.38.35 (talk) 04:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Million units
I flagged a sentence in the hydropower section with a demand for clarification regarding the use of the Million unit (MU) as a shorthand for gigawatt-hour. It took me a bit of reading elsewhere to understand this unit of measurement which is specific to India. For the benefit of international readers, I would suggest you either change MU to GWh or explain what you mean by Unit and Million units in a footnote. Bouchecl (talk) 21:06, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The phrase "generated 855 BU electricity" in the last sentence of the first lead paragraph may also be specific to India. Is this shorthand for terawatt-hour?  I didn't find an explanation in Wikipedia at BU or at a list of acronyms and initialisms. SBaker43 (talk) 14:09, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Electrical Units (Watt/ Hr.) represents the unit consumed in particular time period however watt is intensity of power out put. Similarly Million Unit and Giga watt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.102.191.84 (talk) 09:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Electrical Units is kW Hour (Often kWH), in other words 3600000J (3.6 MJ). This is commonly used as one unit. 16:00, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 * On Wikipedia please use the explicit international units to avoid confusion. Already in this section a unit was defined as WattHour and kWh, with the second 1,000 times bigger than the first! --Ita140188 (talk) 09:45, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Renewable Energy
The amount of energy generated through renewable power sources is mentioned as around 12 percent in the article. While, hydro power is also counted as renewable source. I need other views before changing it. Alok Bansal (talk) 06:14, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Alok Bansal: Please do, for some reason the Indian Central Electricity Authority lists renewable (including wind, solar, biomass, and small scale hydro) as a separate line item from hydroelectric in their reports, which is likely the origin of this confusion. I've also updated the pie chart on this page to remove the same confusion. Crazy2be (talk) 06:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Solar power panels installation on water canals!
When Solar PV panels are installed on water canals as stated in the Main Page, how the canal maintenance such as de-silting is carried out by machinery? 49.207.241.167 (talk) 17:34, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Pakistan and Myanmar natural gas theory and others
You need a source that actually discusses that theory and makes that conclusion. You can't present new theories and do original research in wiki article, relying on data in one or more sources. You need a source to present that theory or idea. Read WP:OR. Wikipedia policy is, "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources." This article has a lot of OR by a user from an IP address 49.207.***.***. 64.134.177.44 (talk) 09:41, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle viability in India.
The following content was deleted by Ita140188 stating not true and not supported by the ref. quoted:

''Hydrogen is a carbon neutral fuel. Solar electricity prices in India have already fallen below the affordable price (≈ INR 5.00 per Kwh to generate 0.041 lb/Kwh hydrogen which is equivalent to 0.071 litres of petrol in terms of lower heating value) to make hydrogen economical fuel by sourcing from electrolysis of water to replace petrol/gasoline as transport fuel. Hydrogen Fuel Cell Engines and Related Technologies  Vehicles with fuel cell technology based on hydrogen gas are nearly twice more efficient compared to gasoline fuelled engines.''

The above content is fully correct in prevailing Indian market prices of solar electricity below INR 5/Kwh and INR 70.42 per litre of gasoline as explained below.


 * Hydrogen gas density at STP: 0.005229 lb/ft3 (Page 1-7 of the ref)
 * Lower heating value of hydrogen: 51,500 Btu/lb or 12,978 Kcal/lb @ 0.252 Kcal = 1 Btu (Page 1-15 of the ref)
 * 180 Kwhr are needed to produce 1400 sft3/hr (Page 2-5 of the ref)
 * Power Generation Efficiency Comparison between hydrogen fuel cell and gasoline engine: at least two times. (Page 4-3 of the ref)
 * 1 Kwhr of solar electricity generates 1400 / 180 = 7.778 sft3 = 0.041 lb (=7.778 x 0.005229) of hydrogen gas.
 * LHV of 0.041 lb of hydrogen is 532 Kcal (=0.041 x 12,978)
 * 532 Kcal of gasoline is 0.071 litres which costs INR 5 @ 7494 Kcal/litre LHV of gasoline and market price of INR 70.42 per litre

When hydrogen gas generated from INR 5 worth solar electricity is used in a fuel cell vehicle, it generates more mileage /power than a conventional gasoline engine with INR 5 worth of gasoline. The statement is true with at least a 100% margin due to 100% more traction efficiency which would take care of the higher cost of fuel cell vehicle.183.82.199.109 (talk) 09:53, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but this is a clear example of original research, which is not allowed in Wikipedia. Only statements that are clearly reported in the reference given can be included in articles. Your calculations include a number of assumptions which are not obvious at all. Also the fact that hydrogen is an "economical fuel" in itself is irrelevant given that most of the cost of hydrogen vehicles and the hydrogen economy in general are probably due to fuel cells and hydrogen generation, transport and storage infrastructure. Therefore even if it was technically true (which is still original research), the statement is at least misleading. --Ita140188 (talk) 10:00, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

There are not many assumptions in my calculations. The hydrogen generating water electroliser is not a costly installation with all the required safety precautions. 100% margin is available (50% of life time fuel savings) to off set the higher cost of fuel cell vehicles with no pollutant emission. A technology may not be economical in developed countries but it can be economical in India due to tax structure. The higher initial cost of fuel cell car in USA is due to inclusion of free hydrogen for 3 years duration. 2016 Toyota Mirai Fuel-Cell Sedan. It is natural to invest initially for a long term returns on hydrogen transport and its filling stations which need not be considered for near future returns. It is a valid statement applicable in India. I hope you are convinced. 183.82.199.109 (talk) 10:32, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Your calculations are interesting, however they belong to a research article, not Wikipedia. There's no mention of all these calculations or conclusions in the reference given, therefore this cannot be added to the article. As for the fact that hydrogen vehicles are going to replace gasoline vehicles, I am not really convinced. Electric vehicles are much more efficient than hydrogen vehicles (in terms of solar generation to km driven) and electricity infrastructure is already in place, while hydrogen still has enormous problems in terms of transport, storage and use in general. This means that EV are most likely going to be the next transport technology in the world and in India too. Keep in mind that fuel cost is only a fraction of the cost of transport. There are several other things to consider, first of all, as I already mentioned, the absence of a hydrogen infrastructure and the cost of fuel cells. This infrastructure would probably cost in the order of tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars to create at a country level. --Ita140188 (talk) 08:10, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Your statement that Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) are more efficient (in terms of solar generation to km driven) than Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles  (FCEV) is true but they have higher replacement cost of battery pack (shorter life) and low availability/higher down time due to the longer time taken for recharging the batteries. The market price difference between a Toyota Mirai Fuel-Cell Sedan and equivalent gasoline Toyota Camry is only US$ 35,000 with inclusion of three years free Hydrogen fuel supply which is not a big difference from an equivalent BEV to say infrastructure cost is very high. Ultimately, what matters is the total incurred cost per mile per unit payload. FCEV are more economical for heavy duty use in inter city transport like taxies, buses, trucks, tankers, etc while BEV are more economical for light duty use in intra city passenger transport. BEV has to face competition from Metro rail / mass transport systems which are also run by electricity on congested city roads.

You may be assuming a few centralised mega Hydrogen plants from where the gas is distributed to every retail outlet as it is applicable to gasoline/Diesel fuels. It need not be but through a decentralised local retail sale point hydrogen generation plants drawing electricity from the electric grid (with oxygen as by product which can also be used in FCEV to boost power and efficiency in place of air). Hydrogen transport and use is less hazardous compared (given in the Ref) to gasoline/LPG/ Chlorine gas (denser than air) which are widely transported and used presently every where.183.82.199.109 (talk) 11:14, 5 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I would like to continue the discussion, but unfortunately there is a need for some solid evidence and numbers, and I don't have time nor this is the right place for it. Anyway, to summarize my view: I am aware of what you are proposing, but I still think that problems related to EV are way more easy and cheaper to solve than problems with FCV. Essentially the only real advantage of hydrogen cars is fast charge, which in my opinion is a non-issue, since a range of 500 km would last the average person 1-2 weeks. And for longer trips, stopping to charge for an hour is not going to make a difference.--Ita140188 (talk) 07:14, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Rural electrification
We need a definition of "village electrification"- sometimes it means that a power pole has reached a village; sometimes it means that at least one house has been given electrical connection. It does not mean any electricity has been actually delivered or consumed or has been made available for more than 10 hours in a month. It is also problematic that different states use different metrics to measure rural electrification. chami 16:08, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem
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Electricity sector in India ... statistics outdated, kindly try & upgrade.
Dear Friend/s,

Good Day

Very well written, however lot of statistics & information is outdated. I request you to kindly check & upgrade with upto date statistics.

Best way to do charts and graphs?
Hello,

I expect to be updating Electricity sector in Turkey shortly. The chart that is there already I made with matplotlib and I was thinking of making more using matplotlib. But do the advantages of making the graphs and charts as has been done in this article outweigh the disadvantages - for example won't there be a problem moving the pie chart here into articles in other Indian languages? And what advantage, if any, is there to having charts here in jpg format?

If you decide to use matplotlib feel free to copy and adapt the code which I will add to the Turkey charts.

Chidgk1 (talk) 11:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Infobox image
I am changing the infobox image on the basis of a few minor issues; it is too dark and unclear at places, the image and its description about the sun setting (irrelevant point since this can be changed) is again unfocused. I'm calling these issues minor since MOS:IMAGELEAD starts off about the representative image— "to give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page".

There are numerous suitable images in the gallery, this is a good one, land based,. I've chosen one, maybe less representative for some, nevertheless, water based. FacetsOfNonStickPans (talk) 11:31, 8 October 2022 (UTC)