India ranks 87th on Energy Architecture Performance Index: WEF

March 24, 2017

India ranked 87th among the surveyed 127 countries on a Global Energy Architecture Performance Index (EAPI) released as part of report of Geneva- based World Economic Forum (WEF).
EAPI is a composite index developed by WEF in collaboration with Accenture Strategy. It focuses on tracking specific indicators to measure the energy system performance of the countries.
It has 18 indicators defined across the three sides of the ‘energy triangle’- economic growth and development, energy access and security and environmental sustainability.

Key Highlights of 2017 EAPI

Top 5 Countries: Switzerland (1), Norway (2), Sweden (3), Denmark (4) and France (5).
India has marginally improved its ranking in this edition from 90th rank in 2016. But it ranks among the worst for pollution.
Global Facts: World’s biggest energy consumers struggle to take leading positions on index as they grapple with inherent challenges of their large, complex energy systems and are outperformed by nimble economies.
Overall, some of the largest consumers of energy such as China (95th), India, Japan (45th), Russia (48th) and United States (52nd) have either slipped in the rankings or experienced only marginal gains.
India related Facts: India is gradually improving its performance on the index, but faces an uphill battle to increase energy access and security (95th) indicators.
A large percentage of the population of India still lacks access to electricity (101st) and uses solid fuels for cooking (108th) indicators.
India’s commitment to increase solar power capacity to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2022, will make it a leader in renewable capacity.
India, just like China, boasts strong score on indicator for diversification of import counterparts (5th), but its energy system continues to face some significant challenges, particularly on environmental sustainability (109th) indicator.
India has some of the lowest scores in CO2 emissions from electricity (117th) production and PM2.5 levels (123rd) indicators.
Energy & Pollution: Sources of pollution are diverse and intermittent (such as refuse combustion, agricultural crop burning, fireworks), but the energy sector is a large, consistent contributor to this issue.
Many solutions have been attempted with varying degrees of impact, but the countries sorely need a comprehensive plan of action to implement an effective and sustainable answer.