Person:
Banerjee, Sudeshna
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Infrastructure economics; energy access; monitoring and evaluation
Degrees
ORCID
Departments
Energy Unit, Sustainable Energy Department, World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Sudeshna Banerjee is a Senior Economist in the Sustainable Energy Department of the World Bank. She has worked on energy and infrastructure issues in the South Asia and Africa departments in both operations and analytic assignments. She focuses on project economics, monitoring and evaluation, and on a broad range of energy sector issues including energy access, energy subsidies, renewable energy, and sector assessments. Ms. Banerjee holds a Ph.D in Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and M.A. and B.A. degrees in Economics from Delhi University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 18
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Publication
Measuring the Results of World Bank Lending in the Energy Sector
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02-27)This note is the first report of energy-sector results indicators reflecting the World Bank's broad lending patterns during FY2000-13. To compile it, energy projects back to FY2000 were manually screened for results data comparable with the standardized indicators now used in the Bank's corporate scorecard. In the future, automation will make it easier to collect, aggregate, and analyze data on project outcomes. -
Publication
More Power to India : The Challenge of Electricity Distribution
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-06-18)This report assesses progress in implementing the government of India's power sector reform agenda and examines the performance of the sector along different dimensions. India has emphasized that an efficient, resilient, and financially robust power sector is essential for growth and poverty reduction. Almost all investment-climate surveys point to poor availability and quality of power as critical constraints to commercial and manufacturing activity and national competitiveness. Further, more than 300 million Indians live without electricity, and those with power must cope with unreliable supply, pointing to huge unsatisfied demand and restricted consumer welfare. This report reviews the evolution of the Indian power sector since the landmark Electricity Act of 2003, with a focus on distribution as key to the performance and viability of the sector. While all three segments of the power sector (generation, transmission, and distribution) are important, revenues originate with the customer at distribution, so subpar performance there hurts the entire value chain. Persistent operational and financial shortcomings in distribution have repeatedly led to central bailouts for the whole sector, even though power is a concurrent subject under the Indian constitution and distribution is almost entirely under state control. Ominously, the recent sharp increase in private investment and market borrowing means power sector difficulties are more likely to spill over to lenders and affect the broader financial sector. Government-initiated reform efforts first focused on the generation and transmission segments, reflecting the urgent need for adding capacity and evacuating it and the complexity of issues to be addressed at the consumer interface. Consequently, distribution improvements have lagged, but it is now clear that they need to be a priority. This report thus analyzes the multiple sources of weakness in distribution and identifies the key challenges to improving performance in the short and medium term. The report is aimed at policy makers and government officials, academics, and civil society in the fields of energy, governance, and infrastructure economics and finance, as well as private investors and lenders in the energy arena. -
Publication
Tracking Access to Nonsolid Fuel for Cooking
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05-15)The World Health Organization estimates that in 2012 about 4.3 million deaths occurred because of exposure to household air pollution caused by smoke from the incomplete combustion of fuels such as wood, coal, and kerosene. Inefficient energy use in the home also poses substantial risks to safety, causing burns and injuries across the developing world. To support the achievement of these goals, a starting point must be set, indicators developed, and a framework established to track those indicators until 2030. The World Bank and International Energy Agency have led a consortium of 15 international agencies to produce data on access to nonsolid fuel for the SE4ALL Global Tracking Framework. Launched in 2013, the framework defines access to modern cooking solutions is as the use of nonsolid fuels for the primary method of cooking. Nonsolid fuels include (i) liquid fuels (for example, kerosene, ethanol, or other biofuels), (ii) gaseous fuels (such as natural gas, LPG, and biogas), and (iii) electricity. These are in contrast to solid fuels such as (i) traditional biomass (wood, charcoal, agricultural residues, and dung), (ii) processed biomass (pellets, briquettes); and (iii) other solid fuels (such as coal and lignite). -
Publication
Tracking Access to Electricity
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05-15)Access to electricity in flexible, reliable, and sustainable forms brings a range of social and economic benefits, enabling people to leap from poverty to a better future, enhancing the quality of household life, and stimulating the broader economy. Modern energy is essential for the provision of health care; clean water and sanitation; and reliable and efficient lighting, heating, cooking, mechanical power, transportation, and telecommunications. To support the achievement of these goals, a starting point must be set, indicators developed, and a framework established to track those indicators until 2030. The World Bank and International Energy Agency have led a consortium of 15 international agencies to produce data on access to electricity for the SE4ALL Global Tracking Framework. Launched in 2013, the framework defines electricity access as the presence of an electricity connection in the household as typically reported through household surveys. -
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Lighting Rural India : Load Segregation Eexperience in Selected States
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02)Socioeconomic development of the rural populace is critical to India achieving its stated objective of inclusive growth. It is widely accepted that access to a reliable and sufficient power supply is a key enabler of rural economic growth. Traditionally, India's rural power supply has been restricted by having feeders to villages serve both agriculture and household loads. Because agriculture power supply is rationed by the distribution utilities, residential consumers often suffer from inadequate service. The study findings reveal that segregated systems can be used to manage peak demand, identify and reduce losses previously hidden in agricultural consumption, improve power supply to rural domestic consumers, and bolster socioeconomic development. Enabling the segregated system with information technology (IT) can further improve monitoring and control and bring about transparency and efficiency: Agricultural consumption on which the subsidy is based can be exactly determined, even without consumer metering, and data collected from the system can be used for strategic decision making and operational improvement. -
Publication
Elite Capture : Residential Tariff Subsidies in India
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015)India - home to one of the world's largest populations without electricity access - has set the ambitious goal of achieving universal electrification by 2017. 311 million people, a quarter of its population, remains without power, despite substantial efforts to increased affordable access for the poor. This study focuses on India's residential electricity subsidies, as viewed through a poverty lens. Addressing these issues is especially urgent since the residential electricity sector accounts for nearly a quarter of India's total electricity consumption. Comparison of two survey rounds (2004/05 and 2009/10) was used to assess changes in electricity consumption over time. The study approach analyzed subsidy distribution by both below poverty line (BPL) and above poverty line (APL) grouping, as well as income quintile, to allow for the wide variation in poverty rates states. The key findings in this study are that 87 percent of subsidy payments go to APL households instead of to the poor, and over half of subsidy payments are directed to the richest two-fifths of households. Furthermore, these estimates are conservative because they assume that BPL and APL households are accurately identified. Because APL households tend to consume more electricity, subsidies are skewed toward the upper quintiles. The major driver of these outcomes is tariff design. Few states have highly concessional BPL tariffs; in most, all households are eligible for a subsidy on at least a portion of their monthly electricity consumption. Combined with the fact that the poorest households consume relatively small amounts of electricity means that wealthier consumers with electricity access are typically eligible for just as much, if not more, subsidy as poorer ones. India's states have a variety of available options for improving their subsidy performance. Certain states model good practices that other states could consider adopting, for example, Punjab, Sikkim, Chattisgarh, and others. States may consider four model tariff structures that meet the twin, medium-term policy goals of high subsidy targeting and low cost. These are (i) creating BPL tariff schedules and eliminating subsidies from other schedules, (ii) delivering subsidies through cash transfers instead of tariffs, (iii) creating a volume differentiated tariff (VDT), and (iv) creating a lifeline tariff and removing subsidies from other tariffs. -
Publication
Power for All : Electricity Access Challenge in India
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015)India has led the developing world in addressing rural energy problems. By late 2012, the national electricity grid had reached 92 percent of India s rural villages, about 880 million people. In more remote areas and those with geographically difficult terrain, where grid extension is not economically viable, off-grid solutions using renewable-energy sources for electricity generation and distribution have been promoted. The positive results of the country s rural energy policies and institutions have contributed greatly to reducing the number of people globally who remain without electricity access. Yet, owing mainly to its large population, India has by far the world s largest number of households without electricity. More than one-quarter of its population or about 311 million people, the vast majority of whom live in poorer rural areas, still lack an electricity connection; less than half of all households in the poorest income group have electricity. Among households with electricity service, hundreds of millions lack reliable power supply. -
Publication
Beyond Crisis : The Financial Performance of India's Power Sector
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015)At the end of 2011, the Indian power sector found itself in financial crisis, just a decade after the 2001 bailout of state electricity boards (SEBs) by the central government. Bankrupt state power distribution utilities in several states were unable to pay their bills or repay their debts. Despite the passage of the landmark 2003 Electricity Act and implementation of a broad set of reforms over the past decade, the sector today is looking at another rescue from the center, four times larger than before. This financial rescue scheme amounts to about Rs 1.9 trillion ($42 billion) and was instigated by the nonperforming assets of the banks and other financial institutions. The Electricity Act was envisaged to create independent companies functioning on commercial principles, but they are still far away from that goal. This report presents a diagnostic of the financial and operational performance of segments in the power sector value chain between adoption of the Electricity Act, 2003, and 2011, including analysis of the factors that contributed to the recent crisis. The report focuses on efficiency and productivity, whether performance has improved over time, and which states have emerged as performance leaders. Analysis of this kind is not new or unique, but this report aims to integrate historical performance, the current situation, future projections of the impact of worsening sector finances, and the actions that need to be taken to check the downturn. The report draws primarily from utility data collected by the Power Finance Corporation in successive years on utilities operational and financial performance. The Power Finance Corporation data were collated into a single database with the addition of various operational parameters at the plant level and the utility level from the Central Electricity Authority. -
Publication
The Power of the Mine : A Transformative Opportunity for Sub-Saharan Africa
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-02-05)Africa needs power - to grow its economies and enhance the welfare of its people. Power for all is still a long distance away - two thirds of the population remains without electricity and enterprises rank electricity as a top constraint to doing business. This sub-optimal situation coexists while vast energy resources remain untapped. One solution to harness these resources could be to tap into the concept of anchor load. Mining industry lends itself to the concept of anchor load as it needs power in large quantity and reliable quality to run its processes. Underpinned by a comprehensive database of mining projects between 2000 and 2020, this report explores the potential and challenges of using mining demand for power as anchor load for national power system development and expansion of electrification. This report finds that mining demand can indeed be a game-changer - an opportunity where policymakers and international community can make a difference in tapping the enormous mineral wealth of Africa for the benefit of so many people. The utilities would benefit from having mining companies as creditworthy consumers that facilitate generation and transmission investments producing economies of scale needed for large infrastructure projects, benefiting all consumers in the system. The mines would benefit from grid supply - typically priced much lower than self-supply - which allows them to focus on their core business, greatly enhancing their competitiveness. The country would benefit from more exports and tax revenues from mines, more job opportunities in local firms selling goods and services to the mines, and a higher GDP. The report estimates that mining demand for power can triple since 2000 going upto 23 GW in 2030. While South Africa will continue to be the dominant presence in mining landscape, its importance will reduce and other countries, primarily in Southern African region, will emerge as important contributers of mining demand for power. Simulations in countries with minimal power-mining interface suggests that bringing this demand explicitly into the power planning process can ensure more investments in both grid and off-grid power systems and potentially superior service delivery outcomes for mines as well as communities. These opportunities can also be attractive investment destinations for private sector. However, there are also risks and institutional roadblocks in power-mining integration - addressing many of them and employing risk mitigation mechanism are within the control of policymakers. -
Publication
Charting the Diffusion of Power Sector Reforms across the Developing World
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11)Some 25 years have elapsed since international financial institutions espoused a package of power sector reform measures that became known as the Washington Consensus. This package encompassed the establishment of autonomous regulatory entities, the vertical and horizontal unbundling of integrated national monopoly utilities, private sector participation in generation and distribution, and eventually the introduction of competition into power generation and even retail services. Exploiting a unique new data set on the timing and scope of power sector reforms adopted by 88 countries across the developing world over 25 years, this paper seeks to improve understanding of the uptake, diffusion, packaging, and sequencing of power sector reforms, and the extent to which they were affected by the economic and political characteristics of the countries concerned. The analysis focuses on describing the patterns of reform without judging their desirability or evaluating their impact. The paper finds that following rapid diffusion during 1995-2005, the spread of power sector reforms slowed significantly in 2005-15. Only a small minority of developing countries fully implemented the reform model as originally conceived. For the majority, reforms were only selectively adopted according to ease of implementation, often stagnated at an intermediate stage, and were sometimes packaged and sequenced in ways unrelated to the original logic. Country characteristics such as geography, income group, power system size, and political economy all had a significant influence on the uptake of reform. Moreover, a significant number of countries experienced reversals of private sector participation, or were unable to follow through with reform plans that were officially announced. Overall, power sector reform in the developing world lags far behind what was achieved in the developed world during the same time period. Yet, even in the developed world, the full package of reforms does not seem to have been universally adopted.