Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill 2022: Roadmap To India’s Climate Targets

The government has recently introduced the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha. The Bill looks to propel India forward to help achieve its climate change targets.

The Bill aims to steer the country in the direction of low-carbon development and has charted a course to achieve the goal by placing an emphasis on non-fossil sources, such as Green Hydrogen, Green Ammonia and biomass across all industries, setting up carbon markets, including large residential buildings under the ambit of Energy Conservation regime. It also seeks to navigate the climate change challenge through a set of other reforms, such as empowering the SERCs, amending penalty provisions etc.

“It is considered necessary to have legal provisions to prescribe minimum consumption of non-fossil energy sources as energy or feedstock by the designated consumers. This will help in reduction of fossil fuel-based energy consumption and resultant carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Similarly, a need is also felt to provide legal framework for a carbon market with the objective of incentivizing actions for emission reduction leading to increased investments in clean energy and energy efficiency areas, by the private sectors,” the government statement read.

First introduced in 2001, the Bill was later amended in 2010 to keep with the changes in the energy market. Amendments have been further proposed twelve years later to keep in step with the National Hydrogen Mission and the ‘panchamrit’ as announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP26 at Glasgow.