2. Solving Power Shortage Across the World

The serious problem of increasing power consumption in India, home to one-sixth of the world’s population

While it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure oil and other conventional (non-renewable) energy resources used to produce electricity today, power consumption around the world, primarily in emerging economies, is steadily climbing to give rise to global energy concerns. In particular, the soaring power consumption in India, the second most populous nation in the world with 1.26 billion people,*1 could have far-reaching impacts on the global energy landscape. India is the third-largest electricity consumer after the United States and China, at approximately 1.0486 trillion kWh in the year through March 2014.*2 India’s electricity consumption is projected to increase 1.8 times to approximately 1.8947 trillion kWh *3 in FY2021, an increase equivalent to the total amount of power generated by around 230 average-sized power stations in the country, signaling an immediate need for energy efficiency improvements.

Our Challenges

Working to reduce India’s power consumption
in collaboration with the Indian Government

Nidec is helping reduce power consumption in India by locally producing power-saving motors. When India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Japan in August 2014, Mr. Shigenobu Nagamori, Nidec Corporation’s Chairman of the Board, President & CEO, was the only representative of a private company to have a private meeting, and the two also met in February of the following year when Mr. Nagamori visited India. On both of these occasions, Prime Minister Modi and Mr. Nagamori discussed the importance of the efficient use of electricity, and agreed that improving motor efficiency is crucial. In April 2015, Nidec completed a factory in Neemrana Industrial Area in Rajasthan State to help replace low-efficiency motors currently used in India with Nidec’s high-efficiency motors. The current plan is to construct a total of five production bases all across India to expand production in the future.

Mr. Nagamori (left) and Prime Minister Modi of India at their first private meeting

Disseminating high-efficiency motors
to reduce power consumption

Due to India’s high economic growth rate and rapidly increasing population, demand for motors is quickly rising, particularly in the appliance, commercial and industrial fields. At present, India is mainly using old, power-consuming AC motors, and their performance is unstable due to fluctuations in the supplied voltage. Nidec aims to disseminate its highly energy-saving brushless DC motors, which maintain performance even when there is a drop in voltage.

Contributing to India’s economic and industrial development through
conservation and production of energy

As India develops economically, its power consumption is expected to increase rapidly. I see this clearly because I live in the country. While further improvement in energy conservation is unlikely in developed countries where a large amount of energy has already been saved, a lot of room for improvement still exists in India. Here, even small-scale improvements will have effects many times larger in the future, and thus we are scrambling to disseminate energy-saving motors.
India’s power shortage has adverse effects on agricultural production as well. For example, irrigation pumps can be used efficiently if more power is available, and this will enable more land to be cultivated, and used more effectively. For this reason, we are currently considering whether it is possible to use irrigation pumps—employing Nidec’s high-efficiency motors and power-storage technology—which generate their own power.
In our daily work, we always keep in mind our mission of reducing power consumption to aid the further development of India’s economy and industry.