 Okay, good morning everybody, welcome to the session on lighting India. My name is Gavin Wilson with the IFC. Our mission is to alleviate poverty. We do that by investing in sustainable business models. A couple of the issues we're particularly focused on are access to finance and access to power. Yesterday in this room we heard about the new government's policy on access to finance. If I heard correctly, I think it's the case that Prime Minister Modi had personally written to every bank employee in the country to have them focus on access to finance. This morning we're going to focus on access to power, electrical power. One-fifth of the world's population do not have access to power. One-fifth of those are in India. So if you think about it, one in 25 people on this planet are Indians without access to an electrical socket. So if we can find a solution to this particular issue, then I think we'll have gone some way to achieving the forum's goal of making the world a better place. It's a topic that covers a number of dimensions. Community development, the role of NGOs, technology, private sector participation, government policy, and regulation. And I'm glad to say we've got an excellent panel to address all these topics. We have the government minister responsible for this sector. We have a leading NGO and we have representatives in both domestic and foreign private sector participants both on the project development and equipment manufacturing side. So we're going to try and focus on solutions. I think the issue, the problem is easy to define. We'll try and make this as solution-orientated as we can and also get as much participation from you in the audience as possible. So I will start by introducing each of the panelists in turn and ask them to give a succinct summary of their involvement on this topic and their perspective. So first of all, Minister Goyal, you are the Indian Minister of State for power, coal, new and renewable energy. What is your perspective on this topic? Thank you and a very good morning to all of you. I think it's very appropriate that the World Economic Forum is discussing about lighting India. Particularly when it saddens us that 67 years after independence, a quarter of our people are still deprived of as basic a need as electricity. I think we're all very conscious of what happens even if the power goes up for five or seven minutes in our home or our office. Or if it happens in the industry, what kind of damage that causes. And particularly the huge impact that power can have in the quality of life of people. We do believe that that will be one of the most pressing challenges before the new government in Delhi. We do believe that it is time that we performed, we delivered 24 by seven power to the length and breadth of India. And the slogan of power for all which has seen many milestones over the last few years finally culminates into action, into performance, into reality. I think it's time that the people of India see this particular aspect of their life completely fulfilled. Fortunately, the mood of the nation has changed. There was a time when good economics did not necessarily lead to good politics. But I think the people of India are now recognizing development, recognizing performance. And there is a general acceptance for change, for a paradigm shift in the way politics of appeasement in India ran for many years. I personally believe making India power surplus, making India completely power enabled is not a dream. It can be made into a reality given the time frame of this government. And I see that 2019 when we go into election for the Indian Parliament, we can't see a situation where we will have power for all businesses, for all homes, for all offices right through the length and breadth of India. It's a challenge Mr. Narendra Modi, the Honorable Prime Minister, has accepted. His track record in Gujarat is of performance. He has delivered on this promise in Gujarat. The people of India have rewarded him. And I'm certain that under his leadership, the kind of inspirational leadership and vision that he brings to the table. I'm fairly confident that we'll be able to succeed in our mission. There are these aspects of power, whether it's generation, whether it's transmission and distribution. I may add it's also about collection in India, to be able to get your money out of the system. And then there are issues related to climate change and security, energy security. That the government is very conscious of. We are addressing each of these challenges in a very systematic and focused manner. More while we do our discussions on all of these subjects. Great. Minister, thank you. Ashwin, Ashwin Dayal is the MD for Asia for the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation have a very specific proposal on this topic called Smart Power for Rural Development, which we'll have time to go into in some detail in a moment. But Ashwin, maybe just in terms of your sort of general perspective on this topic, and in a sense, how to define the issue. What is the problem we're trying to solve here specifically? Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm the minister. Actually, the minister just used the term paradigm shift, and it's often an overused term. But I actually think it's a very apt term for the kind of problem that we're trying to deal with now. And when we look at the energy and electricity challenge, and we looked at it across the world, but especially in India, we think about the scale of the challenge. And we have to think about the scale of the challenge in two ways. There is the production gap. I mean, we have a basic electricity generation problem. And that's a gigawatt scale of challenge. But we also have a human scale of challenge. We have these hundreds of millions of people who aren't connected to the grid, who aren't able to access reliable electricity on a day-to-day basis. And they're not very bankable consumers at the moment, and that therein lies the problem. And that is the scale of the challenge that we're really interested in trying to address. How do we increase access? How do we get more people connected to reliable 24-7 energy electricity so that they can not just invest in their domestic needs, lighting, and being able to improve education and health, but also look at productivity? How do we get more microenterprise development going in villages? How do we encourage more economic activity to be coming in? So for me and for the Foundation, the energy challenge is not an isolated one. It is the catalyst that can actually bring about a real revolution in rural India. What's exciting right now is that we're seeing a convergence of thinking. The fact that the minister is now the minister for both power as well as new and renewable is a very exciting move forward because we can work together on a mixture of different models. When you think about the solution in rural India, we have to think 7-Eleven rather than sort of Walmart, the idea of decentralized renewable energy systems that are scalable, where you can bring in different levels of entrepreneurs working in partnership with government. This is what we have just taken a decision to invest in in India because we think there's huge potential, but this is also a big challenge. If it was easy, we would have solved it already. So our intention is to invest in a thousand mini-grids over the next three years to try and make sure that this movement can really build and grow and that we can converge more players and really build a long-term energy future that is secure for rural India. Thank you. DK Kim is MD for the Hanwa Group and also the Chief Commercial Officer for Hanwa Solar One. So DK, part of this topic is the energy mix. Maybe you can sort of give us a perspective on the role of solar as part of the solution here. Okay, thank you. Good morning. So from the Hanwa Group perspective, I think we look at this issue from three different lenses because I think because we're a diversified conglomerate based out of Korea, Hanwa has a life insurance division, which is the second largest life insurance company in Korea. And we look at from a life insurance investment perspective, power is a very attractive investment vehicle for long-term yield. And also, but also from equipment manufacturing and development and EPC perspective, solar has been our main focus where we've been trying to develop projects and run power plants around the world. So I think, as we look at solar energy, I think most people know the big benefits of solar, but I think particularly in the Indian sense, I think one thing we can talk about is the deployability. I think solar could be deployed in months rather than years. And I think another issue that hasn't been mentioned as much in India, but I think it's mentioned much more prominently in China is the air pollution issue. I think the quality of air in India is as people become more and more richer and as economic development takes place, I think the coal is just not a sustainable way for the air pollution. And obviously there's the issue of climate change. But more from an investment perspective though, I think solar provides the attractive investment vehicle for the private sector because I think solar energy, there's no risk of fuel price that goes into the equation. So I think for many pension funds or insurance companies, having a 25-year investment that yields, yields consistent yield over a lifetime of 25 years is very attractive. So I think as we look at this challenge that we face in India, I think private sector, working alongside the public sector will be key. And I think the government could really attract a lot of investment from the private sector and from the international community as well, as long as the government can provide a stable and the right environment for investment. And I think the willingness is definitely there. And I think the pricing of the technology is where we want it. So as long as I think the government provides the certainty for the investors, I think the investors are ready to flock to India and make these kind of investments and the transformations. Thank you. Tipi Chopra, you are President and CEO of Barrett Light and Power. For many years, you were also President and CEO of GE India. I know GE does a lot of different things, but I still think of light bulbs when people say GE. What we're wearing your new hat, what is your involvement in this particular topic with Barrett Light and Power? Well, thank you very much, Gavin. And it's good to see everybody here in the morning. I know it's a little early. And for me, it's an honor and a privilege to be out here on this panel. Let me take a step back and lay out what I believe is the real problem in this country. There are four key trends that are really going to change and shape the way we solve this challenge. The first one is our population in India continues to grow. And as a result of that, the consumption of electricity is going to grow dramatically. In the United States in 2010, consumption of electricity was roughly about 13,500 kilowatt hours per person per year. In China, in 2010, it was 2,944 units per person per year. In India, in 2010, it was 626. And over the last few years, China's at about 4,000. In India, we had about 850 units per person per year. And that number of consumption and demand is only going to increase. The second point is urbanization. In India today, we are roughly, I think, about 30%. We have an urban population. And I estimate that by 2050, 50% of our population is going to be in an urban. So we're going to have a massive concentration of people in small areas. Point number three, in 2011, we had about 22 mega-cities around the world, so cities which had more than 15 million people. By 2025, we should have 35 mega-cities around the world. And a lot of these are going to be in India as well. So as a result of that, I think the demand for energy in a country like ours is going to increase dramatically. And the question is, how do we solve this challenge? And we at Bharat Latin Par are a clean energy utility. We basically focus on building, owning, and operating wind and solar farms across the country. And then what would be great to discuss is how do we solve this challenge given the fact that we have an accessibility challenge, an availability challenge, and an affordability challenge. And it really is one of the biggest challenges we've had anywhere in the world. But I really believe that we have an opportunity in India to transform the way energy is produced and consumed in this country. The kind of developments that we've seen in technology over the last few years, I really believe that in a country like ours, we can really leapfrog the solutions that were done in the West to really provide the next generation of disruptive technologies to make a difference in solving this challenge in India. OK. Well, thank you all for those opening remarks. So it seems to me that, whilst we're all focused on finding a solution here, that the problem itself is growing in magnitude. Sort of as we talk about it. So minister, if I could ask you maybe to define what would success look like? So over the next three to four years, do you have a specific timeline with specific objectives? Are you able to sort of put some numbers around that? You know, illuminate the topic for us. I'll start with a little background. What we have today is about 53 million homes who are not yet electrified. That's the first challenge. Second, we have a large amount of industry and offices working out of diesel generator sets and inverters. This latent demand of 53 million homes, this demand out of the alternate energy sources, which is extremely expensive and environmentally very unfriendly, put together with the growing industrialization, with the growth of 8% to 10% that India would like to see in the next few years, I can see the requirement for power double in the next five years. So we are doing about a trillion units of electricity generation today. I see 2019 at two trillion units. That's the first objective that we have before us. Obviously, for that kind of generation, we have three options. One is increased utilization of existing assets, a lot of which is stranded, better plant load factors and better fuel supplies, most of which goes back to sorting out the fuel supply problems. And lastly, as many of the other co-panelists said, improving the electricity mix. Even today, while we have about 12%, 13% of installed capacity as alternate or renewable energy, the actual units is only 6%. So we have set an objective of addressing these three issues. We are working on what has to be done with the coal production in India. And there we have a three-track solution. One, as many of you are aware, we've come out with the ordinance which has addressed most of the issues that the Honorable Supreme Court had passed judgment on, strictures on. And I see in the years to come, the private sector playing an increasingly important role in the production of coal, which is an essential input for power. Even today, after all these years, the US of A still has over 60% thermal power generated, with all the great talk about renewables and nuclear and all of that. So I see that would be one of the defining features of how much we can get the private sector to get into coal production. Simultaneously, we are not leaving coal India to its problems. We are addressing those issues. And I see coal India production doubling in the next five years. It makes about 500 million tons, hopefully, this year. We do a billion tons in 2019 as our effort. And we are working systematically to a plan which involves a lot of technology upgradation. It involves opening a lot of new mines which are available with coal India. So on both tracks, the increase in coal India's output, the increase in private sector engagement, and lastly, on gas, we have come out with a revised pricing. We are open to newer developments, newer discoveries in gas, and we are looking at ways to get the gas plants back on screen. Given all of these three things, I'm confident that the fuel supply problem of the power sector would be addressed in a large manner to enable us to almost increase the existing capacity utilization by about 50%. So that would be one element of growth in the generation sector. Considering the environment, climate change issues that Mr. Kim just flagged off, we are conscious that renewables cannot go at the pace at which solar, for instance, after all these years, is still 2,900 megawatt. And the plan that we have before the nation is 20,000 megawatts, 20 gigs by 2022. That's something which was not acceptable to us. Mr. Modi's had a good track record in Gujarat. It's amongst the largest producers of solar. As you rightly pointed out, solar has come down very close to grid parity now. And we have redefined our objective to see if we can do 100 gigs of solar by 2022. So we've changed the paradigm, as you mentioned, by a 5x. And we see that as we look at economies of scale, better technologies for which India is investing in research also, we've just flagged off a project with IIT Jodhpur to look at solar thermal and to see how it can be made more cost effective. So using solar as a platform which also helps the energy security, the fuel security, and climate change issues, we are looking at expanding that 5x from what the original target was. We understand the concerns came as raised. We do understand that the solar generation will have to be sustainable on its own and have bankable power purchase agreements. So I'm focusing more on providing long-term 20, 25-year bankable power purchase agreements. I think that's the key to the success of the solar story. Subsidies is passing. I don't think subsidies can make any industry survive. Certainly not at the levels at which we are talking of. I see large investments coming in also in wind, having reintroduced the fiscal benefits that were earlier available. The Honorable Finance Minister has seized of the concerns of our Make in India program. And we are sorting out some inverted duty issues that were bothering the local manufacturers. And I'm very happy to inform all of you that these solar manufacturers in India have really come up to have measured up to our expectations. When we had a dialogue, and we had a very free and frank dialogue with the manufacturers about the anti-dumping duty, which would have been imposed in August, given the fact that we inherited a ruling by the erstwhile government that there should be an anti-dumping duty. Now, that would have killed the solar mission of India. And it would have completely killed the competitiveness of this industry. So we are working on two tracks. We are strengthening domestic manufacturing. But we are allowing international competition to keep costs low. And I'm very happy that these solar manufacturers, Suomoto, on their own, withdrew the anti-dumping duty request. It's almost a first, at least in India. I don't know about anywhere else in the world, where a duty which has been approved or adjudicated by one arm of the government has been asked to be withdrawn by the petitioners themselves, just to demonstrate that we are sincere, both in our Make in India program and in our power for all. OK. TP, you mentioned in your opening remarks accessibility, availability, affordability. Just like to focus on the accessibility part of that for the moment, we heard the minister talk about the energy mix and both sort of base load as well as the increasing role of renewable. From your perspective, as a renewable player, do you have a solution for the accessibility issue that goes beyond simply more availability and use of broader set of technologies? No, absolutely, Kevin. I think, like I said in my opening remarks, that technology has developed so much of the last couple of years, we can solve the problem fairly well. So I think if you think about it, in 2000, globally, we had about 10 gigawatts of distributed energy. In 2012, there's 70 gigawatts of distributed energy around the world. So distributed energy is growing dramatically, cost of dramatically coming down. So as a result, what the minister said, 20%, 25% of our households don't have access to energy. I really do believe two factors are going to drive that. One is the significant decline in the cost of solar. About five years ago, solar was about $6 a watt. About three years ago, it used to be about $3 a watt. Now it's $0.55 to $0.65 a watt. That dramatic compression in solar prices has never been seen in any other technology and energy anywhere in the world. That combined with the decline in price of storage technologies, storage technologies haven't come down to a point which still makes it financially viable from an affordability perspective in our country yet. But it's the holy grail in every large corporation in the world is investing millions, if not billions of dollars, to really crack the code and affordability of storage. So I think once we have a cheap solar solution along with storage, I think we can really solve that crisis. The second point is the bringing together of communication and technology along with hardware. We are hardware guys. We used to design turbines, and we used to make all the technology that goes into power plants. But what we've done is shown to the world that we can take the advantage of computing power, bringing it together with hardware, and really changing the paradigm of way energy is produced. So let me give you a quick example. On our wind turbines today, we are actually monitoring over 100 parameters live via the satellite on the cloud server. That data finally comes into our control center where we do all the analytics, convert them into algorithms, and now we're able to predict very precisely that 100 hours from now I'll have a gearbox failure or a generator failure. And as a result of that, we've increased efficiencies of fire turbines dramatically. Now we can do that same thing for distributed energy. Imagine a grid where all the little pockets of power centers, the power generators around the country are now talking to each other so that you have an efficient grid. So that can dramatically reduce the amount of money and capital we need for large power plants. We can make our system more efficient, and we reduce the transmission and losses in transmission and distribution around the entire country. So I think those are going to be two dramatic changes. The challenge we're going to have in this country is really this. I always believe that it's less about technology. It's more about the business model. I think the minister alluded to the fact that collections are going to be a challenge for us. So I think if we can get the business model right, I think folks like us in technology can roll this out across the country fairly quickly. OK, TP, if I could just press you on one aspect of what you just said. It sounded to me like everything you just said was connected to the grid in some way. And on the issue of accessibility, the 300 million people in this country who do not have access to power obviously a large proportion are rural and do not have access to the grid at all. So there needs to be some sort of off grid solution. Is that an area that you're also working on? Or is that somehow rather adjacent to the kind of issues you were just talking about in terms of increased affordability, improved technology, better sort of base load, et cetera, et cetera? Kevin, we're going to need it all. There's no going away from the fact that base load is going to be thermal. That's going to be the fact of life. 50% or 55% would have to come from thermal. And obviously, once we have gas in our country, it'll come from gas-based power plants. However, the cost to make the grid, to get to those 400 million people, will not be cost-beneficial for the country to invest in making the grid get to those few people out there in the villages. But like I said, with the now with fuel cells coming in and solar coming in, we can create these distributed energy pockets around the country. But what is really exciting is this. Today we have machines that are talking to control centers. Think of a world where these distributed grids are talking to each other. And as a result of communication technologies, today in the use of big data and analytics, we can have these little units or microgrids around, but still talking to each other where we can balance loads and we can actually analyze where we need more efficiencies. So I really believe that the future is now about a world where all of us in this room become not consumers of energies, but consumers of energy. Each one of us in this room can become consumers along with producers of energy and actually supply the excess power that we're producing back into the grid. And that's going to change the paradigm of energy around the world, given the fact that it's going to destroy the entire utility business model if that's what becomes reality and we can do it in a country like ours. So that's what I'm saying. That's what I think is going to be the future in this country going forward. Okay. So Ashwin, you mentioned that your target was to reach I think a thousand villages in three years. So first of all, how many people does that equate to? And how are you going to do it? Well, it roughly equates to about a million people. I think the point, though, just to build on what he was saying is that, you know, the models are evolving very quickly because the technology price is evolving very quickly. The availability of different types of entrepreneurs who are actually willing to enter this space is changing very quickly. When you think about a mini-grid, you're talking about a very small-scale installation. You're talking about, you know, serving 250 households, maybe 10 or 15 micro-enterprises, and then maybe a tower, for example, a cell tower that's currently operating on diesel. Now, the problem is that with the access question is, everyone wants power, everyone needs power, there's a willingness to pay because people are paying for other expensive solutions, kerosene, diesel, whatever. But demand is thin. So we need an approach in which we can really converge a set of different players at the same time, and this is what we're really focusing on. So we've been talking with seven or eight different energy service companies to see how can we work with you to create the incentives required, commercially scalable, but at least get a head start in terms of some of the early de-risking that's required, say, taking a clustered approach to where you locate and reducing the OPEX costs, for example. We need, we've been working with the cell tower company, so there's a green tower policy or a guideline on that, saying, well, instead of just greening the tower, why don't you become an anchor customer for a small producer, right? So your goal is still to green the tower, but you don't have to do it as a standalone thing. Creating an anchor customer creates, gives a big fillip to the business model. So there's a set of different things that we can do to bring this together and actually roll this out over the next few years. We'll have 30 plants up by the end of this year, and I'd love to have the minister come and visit and look at how that can work as a solution. The real challenge, though, that sits alongside the business model is the uncertainty. So when we talk about grid and grid interactive policies, we need to know, and when we talk to investors as well as entrepreneurs, the absolute question is right now, what will happen in four, five, six years? What will happen to my investment? Where is the interactivity of policies? And there are some draft guidelines, there has been quite a lot of thinking done about that. And I think we have the opportunity now to pilot some grid interactive schemes and actually see how we can build a mix of different approaches over the next few years. Do you need any changes in regulation or government policy to enable you to achieve what your objective is? I think we're heading in the right direction already. I'm not gonna try and advise the minister on policies, but there's a few things that are happening, and I think we need to accelerate those. One is we do need to actually plan together. We actually need to take a cluster and site approach and say, okay, we're gonna do a thousand mini-grids in Bihar or in Eastern UP. How are you actually going to roll that out and how do we get a clear pathway for identifying locations and sites? Because often it's unclear when the grid may or may not arrive. So deal with that uncertainty. The second is, as I mentioned, there has been some thinking done around off-grid policies that can then be eventually made interactive, including things like tariff equity, et cetera, down the road. So there are ideas out there. The ministry is very aware of those. We've been having conversations with both ministries, which are now sort of under one leadership, which is wonderful. And I think now we just need to get to the point of really articulating that and converting that into very clear operational guidelines and to start piloting things on the ground. I think the solutions now we know what they are. DK, you have experience, obviously, in dealing with similar issues in other countries, and any lessons learned, particularly from Solar One's experience in China that we could apply here? I mean, I think as we look at the Indian market, I think there's a couple of things. I mean, one, I think the lowest-hanging fruit is clearly the diesel generation. I think even though you could have a battery system with solar and we would still be able to replace diesel at an affordable cost. I mean, I think as it was mentioned before, I think bankability is the key issue. I think we can make these investments, but I think the cost of capital would be still be too high to justify the investments, just because I think many of these off-grid consumers would be not credit-worthy at all. And I think that's where there's this big mismatch. I think in the global market, I think there's plenty of investors who would seek any sort of yield over 25 years, and I think it would be a dream come true for these investors, but they're just not as comfortable investing in these risky assets. So I think the key here would be the focus on the lowest-hanging fruit, which is clearly the diesel generation. And I think we have to figure out a way, both the government and the private sector, to lower the cost of capital as much as possible. And I think from my perspective, that's the lowest-hanging fruit. And the other one is that I think we see in China that more and more the air pollution issue has become a driving force to kind of pressure the government. Because I think at the end of the day, climate change is an important issue, but people don't complain about climate change on a daily basis. I think air pollution, once it gets past a certain threshold, becomes a daily issue and a health issue for everyone involved. And I think as India doubles capacity in power generation, I think that is gonna become a more and more politically salient issue, I think. And I think that's where there could be a lot of political will mustered towards bringing in greener energy. And I think last thing is, I think, we've seen in other places like in Europe where there have been retroactive tariffs applied, changes in government regulation that have really killed the industry, like in Spain or in the Czech Republic. So I think the certainty, as much as it's possible in a democratic country, the certainty of regulation and the long-term stability of a policy, I think, regardless of who's in power, because these investments are 25-year investments, would be really important for the foreign investors to make these kind of big bets in a country that they see as higher risk than, let's say, the UK or the US. So, DK, one of the things you said there makes me feel a bit more pessimistic about the potential outcome here, which is your reference to cost of capital. I have seen some proposals that involve distributed solar-based systems linked to telecom towers as kind of anchor users, and as a result, allowing that solar-generated power to be distributed in a kind of mini-grid in a particular locality. Is that something that Hanwa's been involved in or Solar One's been involved in? Ashwin, I know you probably have something to say on this topic. I don't know if that fits into your sort of model that you're trying to roll out with the Rockefeller Foundation. But are there business models that where the cost of capital isn't actually a gating issue to actually roll out some of these distributed energy off-grid systems? I mean, I think cost of capital is important, but I mean, I think even with the relatively high double-digit cost of debt that we see in India, I mean, projects have gone through, I mean, I think. But if you compare the project that we can source in other countries like Japan or the UK or US, where it's two, three percent over 20 years compared to double-digit debt that we've sourced in India, I think there's that much more potential for India. And I think if you look at especially the willingness for investors, as we see in the US and other places where there are yield codes where you actually publicly list these assets because they're stable yielding, dividend yielding assets, and that further lowers the cost of capital. So I think, yes, cost of capital is important, but whether it's cell towers or microgrids, I think as long as we can add a certain investable kind of a, make it as investable as possible, I think we can even give higher yields and investors will still come. And the project itself will be viable. Ashwin. I mean, there's no question that the cost of capital in India is a huge constraint. And I don't have an easy solution for that. What I would say is we do need to look at, there are things like priority sector lending, which reduces the cost of capital. We have to think about how that can be applied, for example, to decentralized infrastructure. We as a philanthropic foundation recognize that there are moments in time when you're trying to catalyze a new field that does require some, I wouldn't call it subsidy, but certainly some level of de-risking at a small scale so that you can start to then bank on the scale bringing the costs down. So working, you talked about the tower companies, they are in a very competitive environment. They are looking for savings at any part of their chain. And so there's an opportunity there as well. You know, the big X factor unknown is what will happen to technology costs over the next four or five years on storage, for example. If there's a major breakthrough on that, that will tip the business model and cost of capital become less of a constraint. So, you know, we have to work on several moving parts at the same time to try and get the system moving, but there's such a sense of urgency now. You know, we can't wait. And if it does require a certain amount of de-risking from organizations like ours, then we do that. But we've got to bet on that being able to translate into a scalable model over time. And that's why we're targeting a thousand because I think any less than that, we won't really be able to demonstrate that. Okay, so in a moment, I'm going to open it up for questions and comments from the audience. But Minister, maybe. One comment to address some of the concerns that have been flagged off, because I think all the concerns are legitimate. I'm seized of those issues and we have a solution to every one of those issues. First of all, I appreciate what TP had said. Storage is the key to the long-term success of the off-grid solution. I think when I took charge of the ministry, we had one pilot working on storage, improvising the storage system. I've made that six now. We have six pilots working. And I think Samsung is probably in town meeting me tomorrow day after. We are aggressively going behind storage systems because we do realize the off-grid story will work with that. Having said that, there are different levels on which each of these stories work. Off-grid, for example, has great potential for the remote parts of India, the tribal areas and all. Where we will address the challenge of 24 by seven over five years, but maybe to address the immediate challenge in the next 12 months, I'm going to look at giving them a completely off-grid small panel with a four-hour battery backup, at least so that he gets some light and fan and a mobile charger and maybe a television set so he remains connected with the world. So we'll have to look at solutions at different levels and an interim and a final solution. But certainly storage and cost of capital are issues I'm seized off. In terms of cost of capital, I believe subsidies and any of those other interventions are not going to be the solution. Then you're back to fiscal deficit and you're back to challenges which you've already grilled my honorable finance minister with yesterday. I think the story will go as follows. A, I'll improve the bankability. This government will focus on the bankability of your selling, the sale of power. If, for example, if a good triple A company assures you 25 years sale of your output, I'm sure the bank will give you a much better term. I'm quite sure given the sincerity of purpose and the plans that the government has on setting right the fiscal problems, the current account deficit, the economic growth model, I'm quite confident interest rates will start correcting themselves as well as exchange rate stability will bring in a lower hedging cost, combined factor of foreign borrowings, lower hedging cost, economic stability leading to softening of interest rates which the honorable finance minister alluded to yesterday. I'm sure the combined impact of all of this will have a significant factor to reduce the grid parity to renewables. And lastly, good performing companies which are probably at the marginal rate of tax being 33% tax today, would find it very attractive to leverage solar and renewable energy systems wind also where you get accelerated depreciation of nearly 80% to bring down their tax incident. And I've actually done a working for the public sector undertakings like NTPC and coal India, where I found that if I leverage the triple A rating to borrow cheap, punt a little bit maybe on the foreign exchange where I'm very confident of stability in the years to come. And because of the fact that I pay 33% tax in these companies, when you bring these things together, you actually have a situation where you can almost have grid parity today. So I've asked the office to draw up a list of the top 250 taxpayers who are at the marginal rate. And I'm looking at engaging with them to start investing in renewables. They get the advantage of better capital costs, tax level shield, and they have a 20, 25 year annuity income which is pretty much safe and secure. So I see off grid solutions coming in, albeit at different stages, the individual units first, as we develop storage, the mini grids developing in a bigger way. But end of the day, what TP rightly mentioned, every home, every office will want to get grid connected. After all, he's not looking for power in the daytime out of solar, or he's not looking at sporadic power. So wind may just stop producing as it has today. These three months are the lean months where you don't get wind power. So renewable will ultimately be a feed-in into the system. Solar has excellent advantage that it comes in the peak hours. So you are strengthening the peak. Gas becomes a spinning reserve for the nation. So you bring in grid stability and avoid the kind of distress that 2012, India saw the collapse of the grid. So I think the overall fact that India has a credible government, we are bringing in transparency into the whole working of the government. We have a robust legal system which you can trust. All of these things put together. I visualize an investment of nearly $250 billion in this sector in the next four or five years. At least $100 billion coming in in the renewable space, another $50 billion coming in into transmission and distribution where we are gradually moving at creating a national grid where power can seamlessly flow. And we don't have a situation where Chhattisgarh has a thousand megawatts. They're desperate to sell. They have states in South India, they have states in Northern India desperate to buy. And we have the kind of situation that we faced in Delhi last year where we didn't have enough transmission lines to bring power into Delhi. So we are working at addressing each of these issues. Huge investment opportunity since that's what the Economic Forum is all about. I see power as the driver of the economy as we go forward. And I believe a great opportunity for you to come in, for you to invest. And I can on my part only assure that this government is sincere in giving power to all and this government will protect investments as we go forward. Okay, well thank you minister. So with that is a rallying cry. Any questions or contributions from the audience? And when I call on you, if you could just identify yourselves and also specify if there's a particular panelist that you'd like to answer the question. So we have first hand up, I think was just right here. Thank you. Can you hear me? Madhur Bajaj, Bajaj Otto. We were very encouraged Mr. Goyal to hear about your roadmap and your plans. Very, very ambitious. You will agree that you will need to stretch every source of energy. Now nuclear energy could give you 20, 30,000 megawatts if you tweaked a few clauses. My foreign friends say that you know the liability clause for example. Now I told them that we don't want a Bhopal type of situation, et cetera, but we can perhaps balance it. You mentioned, and I think Mr. Diyal right in the beginning mentioned that how are you going to have the great right up till the last village or last house? You also said about the battery package or something. Again there is a technology where a small little waterfall can give you a mini hydro electrical possibility. We need to decentralize this. Thirdly, I think it's important to tap every possible R&D which is trying to make the cost low of renewable energy like solar and buttress that up, supplement that with our own R&D efforts which I think is lacking in India. Thank you. Great, so I think we'll take two or three in a row. Yes, there's a woman there towards the half way back. Hi, Mr. Goyal, I'm Amy Kasman from the Financial Times. You mentioned the 2012 grid collapse which those of us who were here remember quite well. I wanna ask you, do you still feel that India is as vulnerable now to a similar type of collapse as it experienced and what's your diagnosis of the health of the grid? We've talked a lot about the people who are not on the grid, but what about the health of the grid for the people who are connected to it and what measures do you envision going forward to ensure that a similar collapse doesn't recur? Thank you and hi, Ashwin. Okay, so question here, microphone please. Good morning, I'm Ratul Puri from Hindustan Power. My question is addressed to Minister Goyal. Firstly, Minister, congratulations. You inherited a very difficult set of challenges when you took over and in a very short period of time your government has addressed many of them. One of the big challenges I think India is going to face in the next five years relates to the dysfunctional intermediary that we have, the financial health of our distribution companies. I believe you will sort out the coal supply issues shortly, I believe you will sort out and bring a lot of generation capacity on stream, but I believe one of the big challenges we as a nation need to address is the financial health of our distribution companies. Specifically considering the federal nature of our country, the division of power between the center and the state. Can you talk to us and tell us a little bit about how you plan to address this specific area by 2019 to make the Honourable Prime Minister's goal of 24-7 power a reality. Thank you, sir. So Minister, yeah. Thank you. Mother Bhai, very clearly your spot on nuclear has potential, it has opportunities for India and this government is considering all options. The mini-heidel was a brilliant idea, I'll look at that, I've not yet looked at that at all. But nuclear we have seized of the problem, we are already trying to see how we can address the civil nuclear liability restrictions. Obviously there was no other way at that point of time because the law of thoughts would have in any case prevailed. So whether you had provided any restrictive clause or no was not going to make any difference. Having said that we are still looking at whether there are insurance mechanisms by which we can overcome that. I would still urge any nuclear experts in the room or who hear this that we are still looking at hearing what is the life cycle cost of nuclear energy. I have said this on more than one occasion in public forums, in private discussions with visiting teams, but I have yet to get a real feel of what would be a life cycle cost right up to decommissioning. And I am told that even America has not set up any nuclear plant in the last 30 years. Many European countries are discontinuing. I just want to be sure, and this government would like to be cautious, that we are not being saddled with something only under the garb of clean energy or alternate energy. Something which the West has discarded and is sought to be brought to India. I'm not alluding to any allegation of any sort, but I'm just flagging off, that we yet need to get comfort and be clear what we are getting into. In terms of R&D, I recognize what you said. In fact, when I became a minister, one of the comments I made in a public forum was there's no budget for R&D. And everybody was aghast. They said, oh my God, this government doesn't want to do R&D. I said, no, no, what I mean is there's no limit to what we'll do. Budget is a limiting factor. I said it is unlimited. We'll spend what it takes. And when Dr. Anil Kakotkar, the former Atomic Energy Chief at a lunch, mentioned to me that there's a 200 crore project for research in solar thermal, which has been lying in the files for two and a half years, this government took 30 minutes to approve it. I told him, leave the lunch, go to the NTPC. They sorted out in 30 minutes, and they have kick-started that project to do research in thermal solar. So we are completely and fully committed to R&D. I would urge you to bring in more projects. I said storage we are working on. But we are open to all sorts of R&D. Ma'am, you talked about the grid collapse. Very good point. We are very seized of that. And I can assure you it's one of the critical issues that is being monitored on a 24 by 7 basis. We have a huge monitoring station. The country has already introduced N minus 1 and brought in redundancy into the transmission grid, offered to the chagrin of many states or many power generators who don't get transmission lines because of this restriction. We have also brought in heavy penalties for people who disturb the grid frequency. We are now looking at gas being the spinning reserve, which will come in during this period to ensure grid stability. And maybe we may have to even incentivize more production to ensure that there is grid stability. So every effort is being made that we can move towards N minus 2 in the years to come to further strengthen the grid. But what we have inherited is a lack of transmission systems across the length and breadth of India. And that is why I said there's a $50 billion opportunity. A lot of lines are being opened up. A lot of tenders are coming out all through e-auction, reverse pitting. And I think that's the business opportunity that you should not miss. I'm quite confident that a problem like that will not occur and is being monitored very carefully. Ratul, you talked about dysfunctional intermediaries. One challenge which I think I'm a little foxed with, still don't have an immediate solution. But I see two silver linings. One, states are recognizing the fact that this can't go on too long. So I'm not very concerned about center state issues. By and large, states are also conscious that they have to sort out this issue. They are coming on board. We are having a continuous dialogue. With interest rates softening, I see the stress on the local electricity boards reducing. The center cannot come forward every time with a package. We've already had a financial restructuring package in 2012. Of course, I have gone through that package. It really was no package. But we'll look at parking this problem, sorting out the immediate requirements to reach power to all the people. My personal belief is, if you promise people the moon and tell them you have to pay for it today, he's not going to do it. But if you deliver the moon and then ask him to set right the costing, I'm sure people in India are conscious of their responsibilities. They'll be happy to support any effort to bring 24 by 7. But the cost of that will have to be passed on to him after you have ensured quality and affordable power to him. And you can't promise him something which he has over the years lost faith in, but keep burdening him with more cost. So our approach is that we'll probably have to park a few problems, move forward, reach out to the people for a better quality of life with power in their homes, in their offices, in businesses. Let the economy of the country improve. Generate more jobs, make people self-reliant and give them the ability to pay. And I'm sure the problem can then be resolved in a more amicable and satisfactory fashion, which is to the liking of the people of India. So we're out of time, I'm afraid. But I'd like to thank the panelists. We've had a robust discussion. I think we've covered a number of different areas. I think we've touched on coal, hydro, wind, solar. I think the moon even came into it there at the end. And so I'd like to thank TP, DK, Ashwin, and Minister for your illuminating comments. So thank you very much indeed. And thank you to the audience.