Sustainable development of the indian private power industry meeting corporate, social and climate objectives

Despite it´s now well-known technical prowess, a large proportion of the Indian rural population still does not have access to electricity. Further, the Government of India has been exhorting private companies to participate in the national effort of extending electricity access to the rural consumer. However, private companies have to balance shareholder and social objectives. Further, carbon emission objectives have been added to this list. Previous studies have shown the positive impact of distributed renewable power generation in serving sparse rural populations. In this paper, a case study describing the interplay of various renewable and fossil fired technologies and their impact on the capacity growth, return on investment and carbon emission has been presented to highlight the challenges faced by an Indian private sector utility.