Engineers Day Celebration of Regional Engineering College (RECK / NITK) Kurukshetra

Well this was my first alumni gathering of my undergraduate alma matter which I attended. I was fortunate to be in India this time. A very interesting discussion was - "Who is an Engineer". There were various answers to this question, but most of them centered around - "Someone who creates something of value is an Engineer". The word "Engineer" has lost significance in the current era in terms of the old definition which segregates "Engineering" under various streams. Past Trends Whether it is IT or Globalization or any other technology / macroeconomics related change, all of them have significant impact on Engineering. Consider the fact that only very few of my batchmates, who passed out of RECK in 2002 are now doing the core of Engineering related work. Incidentally most of them landed jobs in IT or have shifted to IT. It is the external change, which changes the orientation of professional. Especially in India, IT growth overshadowed the growth of any other sector. Future of Engineering Now the pertinent question is - "What is future of Engineering?". As we have witnessed in the last decade the pace of economic growth had guided the orientation of Engineers. It could be Biotech or Renewable Energy decade of 2010-2020. Questions which Engineering institutes like RECK need to answer 1. How to stay ahead of the change curve in Macro-economics 2. How to stay relevant in the uncertain future 3. How to help existing alumni to cope up with these changes.

REC (Renewable Energy Certificate) Mechanism in India

The REC mechanism was introduced with lot of Pomp and Show in the beginning. There was a bait for the developers to 1. Take high ROI for some years and recover the cost 2. Ready to Trade Market for immediate cash realizations Prices were definitely attractive with floor and ceiling fixed at 9 and 12. It was definitely a profitable venture as per some of the experts. Despite all good promises, it failed on the following fronts 1. Due to lack of strong RPO (Renewable Purchase obligations), most of the REC would be sold around year end (or end of a any other review period if RPO review durations are reduced in future). This makes the revenues from a REC backed project uneven and adds to lots of uncertainties. 2. Grid projects can only be supported by subsidy due lack of grid parity in solar till now (situation may be different beyond 2015). So, Off-grid projects (which are economically viable as of now) need to be included in REC mechanism in reasonable scenario. As of now it is absent and I am stumped why? 3. What would substitute “REC” after 2017 4. Lack of visibility of pricing beyond 2017 even if policy remains intact It is highly likely that prices of modules will reduce further due to both market growth and technology up gradations. So the capital cost is bound to decrease by 2017, but capital cost of a developer would be the cost he incurs right now. Hence, it is unfair to developer of 2012 than someone entering in 2017.