In the midst of continued reliance on coal, the Indian government has set a target to add 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. The announcement came from a senior renewable energy ministry official.
In the interim, the country anticipates installing 175 GW of renewable capacity by 2022, a figure that doesn’t include 50 GW of hydropower, ministry official Anand Kumar said, according to Reuters.
“India, the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, 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, while looking to manage its energy appetite as its population becomes more prosperous,” Reuters journalist Sudarshan Varadhan wrote.
Two years ago the Indian government made the rules for awarding renewable energy projects more competitive, which has led to lower prices, Varadhan added. A report earlier this year from the International Renewable Energy Agency found that India, along with China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, accounted for most of the global increase in solar capacity.
Reaching the new renewable energy capacity target won’t be easy, however. “We need to work across a wide range of sectors and in between those sectors,” a senior director at the New Delhi-based independent organization the Energy and Resources Institute told CNBC recently.
The US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) estimates that India needs $500 million to $700 million in investments in renewable energy and the country’s grid over the next decade in order to reach the 2030 target, the Economic Times reported today.
As long as the Indian government provides a clear policy framework and establishes measures that lower risks, capital should flow into the country, an IEEFA director told the outlet.