Comparative assessment of energy sources for attaining Sustainable Energy Security (SES): The case of India’s residential sector

Abstract

Attaining ‘Sustainable Energy Security’ (SES) is a valid end goal of an energy policy. However, SES is a multidimensional concept which is difficult to evaluate. The aim of this paper is to undertake a comparative assessment of SES of various energy sources for the residential sector in India. The paper also intends to construct a SES Index and rank the energy sources by assessing their performance in different dimensions. The end goal is to identify the energy sources which are relatively more secure and sustainable for India.  The paper uses a scoring matrix and a weighting matrix to develop a SES Index. This multidimensional index is constructed as a weighted sum of four indices representing various dimensions, viz. Availability, Affordability, Efficiency and Environmental Acceptability. A comparative assessment of six energy sources for the residential sector for urban India reveals that, firewood has the highest rank followed by LPG and electricity while kerosene has the lowest rank. However in rural India, firewood has the highest rank followed by dung cakes while LPG has the lowest rank.  Sensitivity of the SES Index to variation in weights reveals that the results are mostly insensitive to +/- 10% variation in allotted weights. It is therefore important that energy policy in India should be designed in a manner, so as to promote the use of firewood and dung cakes which are relatively more ‘Available’ and ‘Affordable’ in rural areas. Along with this, emphasis should be given on design of better technologies to increase the ‘Efficiency’ and ‘Acceptability’ of these energy sources.