India's incremental demand to be second to China by 2017

Mumbai, Jun 4 (UNI) The power demand of India will soar to around 315 to 335 GigaWatt (GW) by 2017 from the current level of 120 GW if the country's Gross Domestic Product grew at an average of eight per cent over the next ten years, according to a report by a leading consulting firm Mckinsey.

The peaking deficit would shoot up to 70 GW from 15 to 20 GW now, the report ''Power India: The Road to 2017'' carried out by the Electric Power and Natural Gas practice of McKinsey.

The factors driving the demand for higher power included higher than before growth of India's manufacturing sector, Higher growth in domestic consumption at 14 per cent per year, connection of 1,25,000 villages to the grid through several flagship programmes such as Bharat Nirman, and the realisation of demand that is suppressed due to load-shedding.

The report, McKinsey stated in a release was the result of a six-month long effort and provided a detailed perspective on the demand outlook in 2017, proposes a 10-point programme to unlock the sector's potential, and outlines the opportunities, risks, winning business models for players.

''To fulfill its power requirement by 2017, India needs to increase its pace of capacity addition by five-fold to ten-fold.

Further, it needs to modify the profile of its fresh capacity, to ensure the country has the right mix of base-load plants and peaking plants. A step-up of this magnitude is unlikely to materialise with a traditional approach. A radically new approach is essential to address viability risks, ensure faster capacity creation, secure fuel, and improve asset efficiency. Given the number of agencies involved in the sector, more effective monitoring and review mechanisms are also critical,'' Vipul Tuli, Partner, McKinsey&Company and co-leader of the Electric Power and Natural Gas Practice said.

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