Despite periodic policy pronouncements to shift to cleaner fuels, coal-fired thermal power plants still account for over 70% of India’s electricity. That’s perhaps not surprising for a developing country where coal is the cheapest source of fuel. So, we can expect thermal power to continue to occupy the top slot for quite some time, overriding concerns over carbon emissions, pollution and climate change.
But what can mitigate the damage to our health and environment is lowering the amount of coal thermal plants consume. This requires power plants to improve their efficiency by adopting new technologies. But state-owned power plants and electricity subsidies have made it complicated to incentivize a shift to more efficient plants by investing in tech solutions. That’s one reason why industrial IoT startups, which could have helped power plants with data analytics, found it hard to sell their products in India in the past, and focused on buyers in global markets.
