Rahul Tongia - Mentions and Appearances

Renewable energy growth has been strong but won’t be enough to avoid more coal. India’s focus should be on cleaning up coal, instead of wishing it away.

Indian Railways’ business model is based on passengers underpaying and freight overpaying. Already, in financial year 2016-17, coal’s extra freight charge increased the cost of power by about 10 paise per kilowatt on average. For power plants in distant states, which inherently rely on Railways for coal, this number can be three times higher.

Gujarat, Punjab, Tamil Nadu that are far from coal mines, and therefore pay more than others, will contribute proportionately more to recover the coaching loss — the passenger subsidy. This overpayment by coal-based power applies to all coal generation in States like Punjab as all their coal comes via Railways.

While generation capacity [of electric vehicles] at a national level may be present, many bottlenecks will be local, especially at the feeder or distribution transformer level...There are broader ecosystem issues that need further study, including grid-signalling (including time-of-day pricing for electricity), valuing pollution reduction, charging infrastructure and finances...More than half the retail cost of petrol is taxes, which would need to be covered via other means if we move to EVs. It is unlikely one can (or should) tax electricity at the same rate

In India, the push into solar has been driven partly by a desire for cleaner energy sources, but also because there is more financing available for solar than for coal.

Electric makes a fair amount of sense for any fleet, but e-buses have more viability. A taxi may have a good day or a bad day, but it is not so with buses. The main point about smart cities is to draw new capital, which involves changing the way we look at our existing resources.