Renewable Energy: Finding its place under the Sun

As part of the global community aware of its responsibility towards a cleaner climate and sticking to commitments on emission reduction, India has laid a strong emphasis on renewable energy generation with the target of achieving 175 GW of installed capacity by 2022 and 450 GW by 2030 wherein solar power will have the lion's share.

- Sumit Maitra

With active participation of the private sector and enabling regulatory and policy support created by the government, there is significant pipeline for renewables. Intense competition among project developers have ensured that tariffs – in solar and wind – touch the levels from where it can give meaningful competition to conventional energy particularly thermal.

There are some areas of weakness though including poor financial health of the Discoms and the lack of manufacturing base for Photo voltaic cells, storage facilities and other components needed to set up a renewable energy facility and distribute or store that power.

The Atmanirbhar initiative of the government aims to fill that gap by promoting domestic manufacturing and reducing dependence on imports particularly from China.

In solar capacity, India could add only 3.2 GW in 2020 as the market slumped due to Covid-related disruptions.

However, in the last auction held for solar energy procurement conducted by Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam, there was encouraging response from bidders not only the private sector but also from public sector represented by Coal India and NTPC.

Aiming global leadership in renewable energy

The country has also taken leadership role in the renewable sector with the launch of the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

Also, earlier in January, India entered into an agreement with International Energy Agency which will lead to strategic partnership to be jointly decided by the International Energy Agency (IEA) members and India and work on the Clean Energy Transitions Programme (CETP), such as energy security, clean and sustainable energy and energy efficiency among other areas.