Modelling Institution in India

India’s several interlinked energyrelated challenges can only be met by long-term planning and coordinated action by various stakeholders. By highlighting the Planning Commission’s Integrated Energy Policy report, this article proposes the creation of a government-supported statutory energy modelling institution – the Bureau of Energy Information and Analysis – that works under the guidance of the Planning Commission to develop an in-house modelling and analysis capacity for India. It argues that such an institutional approach will strengthen India’s existing energy modelling efforts and help create a community of committed energy specialists. Sustained economic growth in India requires significant investment in energy infrastructure over the coming decades. Development of new energy infrastructure requires the country to tackle several key challenges at the same time. These challenges include: (a) increasing energy security at a time of escalating global resource constraints; (b) financing large energy infrastructure with substantial capital outlays; (c) increasing growth in the interlinked support infrastructure; (d) reducing social and environmental impacts of a growing energy infrastructure; and finally; and (e) addressing climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation. Successfully dealing with these energy-related challenges will necessitate changes in the country’s socio-economic policies and institutional structures. Although a lot of attention has been (and is still being) paid to reforming India’s energy institutions and corporations with an orientation towards market-based economics, there is a major lacuna: building institutions for energy modelling and analysis. Dealing with the multifaceted energy challenges in the coming decades requires India to develop substantial capacity in energy-environment-economy modelling analysis and forecasting, using complex modelling tools.1 The importance of modelling in the energy sector has been highlighted in the recently released Integrated Energy Policy (IEP) report by the Indian Planning Commission. The report noted the need for supporting long-term “energy policy modelling” at a selected institution through a proposed National Energy Fund [Planning Commission 2006].2 Energy policy modelling would include activities ranging from data collection, analyses and modeldevelopment to use and cross-comparison of models for energy policy analysis and evaluation. As the IEP report indicates, energy modelling and analysis has been pursued in an ad hoc fashion by the government, by individual researchers in various academic institutions, and by non-governmental agencies, despite repeated calls for a coordinated institutional structure. It is towards this end that we discuss some of the past and present institutional structures for energy modelling in India, highlight the details of other worldwide energy modelling organisations, and finally present the key elements of an effective institutional framework for energy modelling and analysis in India.