India aims to set up 500 GW (Gigawatts) of renewable energy generation capacity by 2030, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) said.
India will have installed 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022.
The MNRE Minister, Aanand Kumar, announced this at the 17th meeting of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Council held in Abu Dhabi.
He said that fighting against climate change and adopting renewable energy technologies is a matter of faith and commitment for India. He suggested that IRENA should work to enhance the capacity of renewable energy institutions in member countries and focus on innovation and new areas like hydrogen as an energy carrier, storage.
Also discussed were the efforts being made by India for the de-dieselisation of the farm sector. India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and has pledged to cut emissions and have clean energy account for at least 40% of its installed capacity by 2030, up from 21.4% now.
The Minister said that India is willing to help other member nations in the development and deployment of renewable energy. He invited IRENA members to 3rd Edition of RE-INVEST to be held in October.
As reported earlier, India is expected to add 144GW renewable energy capacity by the fiscal year (FY) 2021-2022, considering the current state of wind, solar, and other renewable sources, says a report. This is not far from the 175 GW target the country set in 2015.
India is on its way to a run-rate that will exceed its 275GW targets in 2027.
Although the country is on track, the report said the fiscal year 2018-2019 was weak for both the thermal and renewable sectors in terms of increased generation capacity. In total, only 12GW of net new power generation capacity was added; compared to an average of 22GW added between FY 2012-2013 and 17GW in FY 2017-2018.
According to the Ministry of Renewable Energy’s March 2019 statement, 75GW of renewable capacity has been installed across India, 28GW auctioned, and 37GW of capacity is under various stages of tendering and bidding.
The report said that if all these plans come to fruition, this amounts to a total of 141GW of renewable capacity, relative to the government’s target of 175GW by 2022. Provided the 37GW of tendered capacity is awarded in the next six to nine months, it will mandate developers to commission this capacity before March FY 2022.
Furthermore, last month, the Ministry organised a brainstorming session for stakeholders in the renewable energy sector.
The event was held against the backdrop of a time of relatively slow progress in the commissioning of sustainable energy projects, primarily because of differences between the government and developers over issues such as ceiling tariffs and land acquisition.
The MNRE secretary said the event was a chintan baithak, which translates to contemplation meeting. It was the first of its kind and was held at the Ficci auditorium in Delhi. The event explored how to kick-start the manufacturing of solar equipment in the country and the ways to enhance wind manufacturing.
