Managing New Energy Technology Alternatives for India’s Captive Power Industry

India’s energy challenge is the result of its expanding economy and industrialization, as well as its growing population and rising standards of living. To meet this challenge, India has to keep pace through innovation and adoption of new and improved energy technologies that meet consumers’ needs and demands. The goal of this research is to look at new energy technologies that could be adopted for India’s industrial sector as captive power generation units. A bottom-up “toolbox” energy model is developed to analyze the technology choice based on levelized energy cost, capacity factor and environmental emissions. Sensitivity of the governing factors affecting the decision process is analyzed. The model is run under different socio-economic scenarios in India to ascertain the technology choice and behavior of technology choices. The model results indicate that advanced conventional technologies operating on natural gas (NGCC-“H” and NGCC-“G”) seem to be the most optimal choice during low economic growth cycles, while Fuel Cell technology is best suited to times of high economic growth. Based on research findings, strategic technology management perspectives have been recommended for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and energy consultants, who would want to strategically place these technologies in the market to meet the customer needs.