Review: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, and Telangana in the ‘Front Runner’ Category in SEEI 2021-22
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 2, 2023
The State Energy Efficiency Index (SEEI) is developed by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) under the aegis of Ministry of Power. SEEI 2018 was the first Index in this regard followed by SEEI 2019 and SEEI 2020. The fourth and latest edition SEEI 2021-22 was recently released for the years 2020-21 and 2021-22.
As part of its commitments in line with its pledge at Conference of Parties (COP) 26, Glasgow, India has announced that it will reach Carbon neutrality by 2070 and also to reduce its emissions to 50% by 2030.  Achieving Energy efficiency in generation, remission, distribution, and utilization across various sectors are key to India achieving its environmental targets.
Collaboration between the Central and State governments towards Judicious use and allocation of resources, policy implementation, alignment, etc. becomes critical to ensure India is on track to achieve energy efficiency. Regular progress tracking assumes importance enabling the Centre and the States to ascertain the progress and plan accordingly.
The State Energy Efficiency Index (SEEI), developed by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) under the aegis of Ministry of Power along with Alliance for an Energy-Efficient Economy (AEEE), serves the purpose. The State Energy Efficiency Preparedness Index 2018 was the first Index in this regard followed by SEEI 2019 and SEEI 2020. The fourth and latest edition SEEI 2021-22 was recently released for the years 2020-21 and 2021-22.
In the first part of this two-part series, we look at the broader framework of the SEEI 2021 and analyse the overall trends across states in the latest index.
50 Indicators across 7 Sectors constitute the Framework for SEEI 2021-22
The framework used for SEEI 2021-22 is similar to the ones used in the earlier editions i.e., SEEI 2018, SEEI 2019 & SEEI 2020.
SEEI 2021-22 considered two financial years i.e.,2020-21 and 2021-22.  The framework for SEEI 2021-22 is consistent with the earlier versions to better assess the annual performance and the progress of the states.  As per the report, the focus of SEEI 2021-22 is more on evaluating result-based and action-oriented indicators.
States’ performance in promoting Energy Efficiency (EE) across 7 sectors is measured in this index.  The Sectoral categorization includes – Buildings, Industry, Municipal Services, Transport, Agriculture, DISCOMS and Cross-Sector. The measurement of performance is done using 50 indicators across these 7 sectors.
In SEEI 2020, Agriculture and DISCOMS were combined with a rationale that the indicators defined for agriculture are primarily related to Distribution strategies. The weightage for these combined sectors was 15% in SEEI 2020. However, for SEEI 2021-22, both the sectors have separate indicators with the weightage being 6% & 10% for Agriculture & DISCOMS respectively.
38 of these 50 indicators are categorised as Common Indicators i.e., indicators for policy, institutional capacity, finance adoption of EE measures, etc. The rest of 12 are termed as Programme-specific indicators which evaluate state programmes in EE in terms of objectives, timeline, progress, budget allocation, etc. These programme specific indicators are being used for the first time for SEEI 2021-22 and is done to evaluate the efforts and achievements in implementing EE programmes across all sectors in the states and UTs.
Another aspect of the State Energy Efficiency Indexes is the grouping of the states. The purpose is to categorize the states based on similar energy consumption to facilitate a rational peer comparison. For the SEEI 2020 report, the grouping of the states was done based on states TFEC (Total Final Energy Consumption) in 2017-18, whereas the grouping for SEEI 2021-22 was based on TFEC for 2019-20, which happens to the latest available state-wise final energy consumption data from Central sources.
28 States have improved their scores from SEEI 2020 of which 7 States improved by 15 points
All the 36 States/UTs have provided data for SEEI 2021-22. Overall, Karnataka has secured the highest score with 82.5 across all the aforementioned groups. It is one of the 5 states which have achieved the status of “Front Runner” i.e., states with score more than 60.  The other states include – Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, and Rajasthan. In 2020, there were only 2 States in this category.  Another 4 States are categorised as Achiever (50-60). Meanwhile, more states have moved upwards into Contender category (30-49.5) from the least category of Aspirant (less than 30). Compared to 2019, many states have secured higher scores in the index.
As indicated, Karnataka tops the list of States. It belongs to Group 1 category states i.e., those with the TFEC of more than 15 MTOE. Among these high consumption states, Rajasthan ranks next followed by Haryana. Among this group, Tamil Nadu & West Bengal are among those that are lagging.
Among those states that are categorised in Group 2 i.e., whose TFEC is between 5-15 MTOE, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are highest with 77.5 and 74. Along with another state in this category, Kerala, these three states are among the Front runner states. In this group, Bihar is still in the lower category with only a score of 21.
Except for Assam, the other states with a comparatively lower energy consumption are also among those with lower scores.
Tamil Nadu, which was among the states with a lower score in SEEI 2021-22, has witnessed a considerable fall in its score compared to SEEI 2020. It is among the 8 states whose score has not progressed in SEEI 2021-22. It has the highest fall of 22.5 points compared to the earlier index. The other States/UTs whose scores reduced in the current index are – Punjab, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh & Mizoram.
In SEEI 2021-22, greatest improvements across States seen in Transport sector while its opposite in case of Industry.
Variances of performances of the states vary between the sectors. While the overall scores show an improvement in SEEI 2021-22, compared to the earlier index results, the same cannot be said for each of the sectors.  Buildings, Industry & Transport have the highest weightage in the SEEI 2021-22 score. The performance of the states in the respective sectors does have a bearing in the overall score.
Compared to Industry sector, more states have increased their score in the Buildings and Transport sectors. Improved performance of states in these sectors is reflected in their overall score.  Barring a few states, the performance of most of the states declined in the industry sector.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu, which has the highest drop when compared to the earlier Index results, witnessed a decline across multiple sectors.  A detailed analysis of sector-wise performance of the states will be covered in the second part of the story.