India’s untapped ocean energy: A blueprint for powering the future

India's 8,000 km coastline holds the potential to generate a staggering 9.2 lakh TWh of clean energy annually

Kumar Chellappan

The 8000 km long Indian coastline has the potential to generate 9.2 lakh Trillion Wats hour per annum (TWh/annum) electricity, which is a manifold of what is generated as of date. This is at a time when India is struggling to meet its requirement of 4.5 Lakh MW power utilizing all sources of energy production.

According to Ocean Energy Atlas prepared by Hyderabad-based Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), a premier research and development organization under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea are the nation's Akshayapatra of energy. “ The Exclusive Economic Zone lying within the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal has oceanic energy potential of 9.2 lakh TWh/annum.

This is the first time in the history of India the oceanic energy potential has been assessed and an atlas of this kind has been prepared,” Dr T M Balakrishnan Nair, Group Director and lead scientist, INCOIS, told The Pioneer.     A bouquet of offshore renewable, offshore solar, offshore wind, wave, tidal, ocean thermal energy conversion, and salinity gradient represent the hitherto untapped potential of renewables.India's Ocean Energy Atlas has been released following the International Renewable Energy Agency's finding that the G-20 countries collectively account for 81 per cent of total renewable energy and about 100 per cent of ocean energy.

India's offshore wind energy remains untapped even as countries like Denmark, Britain and China have made giant strides in this sector. Dr Nair says there is wide scope to set up renewable energy power stations to tap salinity gradients. Dr. T. Srinivasa Kumar, director, of INCOIS, said that the atlas would serve as a key resource for guiding policy and investment decisions in the energy sector.

An important element in this form of energy generation is that there would not be any kind of apprehension in the minds of the people about land acquisition, pollution and discharge of effluents. “This is the cleanest form of energy and many public and private sector enterprises have shown their interest in setting up renewable energy units,” said M Ravichandran, secretary, ministry of earth sciences, Govt of India.

INCOIS is playing a major role in the country's blue economy sector by providing information to fishers about potential fishing zones and sharp weather forecasts. Dr Srinivasa Kumar and his team have developed a state-of-the-art tsunami warning system with which they alert countries along the rim of the Indian Ocean. Since its inception in 1999, INCOIS has been contributing to India's blue economy through its flagship programs like Potential Fishing Zones (PFZ), Ocean State Forecasts (OSF) and Tsunami Early Warning Services (TEW).  INCOIS has also been the national and regional warehouse for oceanographic data spanning in-situ platforms, satellite sensors, and model-simulated products.

Taking advantage of the availability of such long-term scientific datasets, INCOIS has taken up the challenge of estimating the ocean energy potential from the Indian EEZ  and prepared an Atlas for the first time in the country.The satellite data collected through hi-tech sensors about the regions where there are good catches are disseminated to fishers and this has made the job of fishermen quite easy. All they have to do is rush to the areas identified as fishing zones by the INCOIS scientists.The Integrated Ocean Energy Atlas prepared by Team INCOIS is the first of its kind in the world.

Ocean energy assumes significance as scientific reports are galore about the fluctuations in solar power generation capabilities because of climate change. G M Pillai, director general, of the World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE), Pune, says that as of this date, solar power output is not encouraging because of changes in rain patterns. “The Rajasthan deserts could have been the powerhouse of states like Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat but the solar power potential has come down and the deserts are becoming evergreen garden,” said Pillai.  The thorium-based nuclear reactor is yet to take off and the picture from nuclear power reactors is dismal. There was a time when former directors of the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research (IGCAR) at Kalpakkam had claimed that India was the world leader in Fast Breeder Reactor technology, it all ended up as chest beating.  The only hope is integrated ocean energy. India has a vast coastline of nearly 8000 km and this could offer a permanent solution to our energy needs.

The Pioneer

India's offshore wind energy remains untapped even as countries like Denmark, Britain and China have made giant strides in this sector. Dr Nair says there is wide scope to set up renewable energy power stations to tap salinity gradients. Dr. T. Srinivasa Kumar, director, of INCOIS, said that the atlas would serve as a key resource for guiding policy and investment decisions in the energy sector.