India will look to be more innovative in its approach to garner additional investments worth Rs 1.75 lakh crore for having 35 GW of renewable power generation capacity next year to meet the ambitious target of 175 GW of clean energy capacity by 2022. At present, the country has a total installed renewable energy capacity of 90 GW. This includes 39 GW of wind and 37 GW of solar generation capacity.
Around 50 GW of renewable energy capacity is under construction and there is also a strong pipeline of 30 GW for new bids. ”There is a fund requirement of Rs 1.75 lakh crore to achieve the balance capacity of 35 GW (underbidding/ to be bid out/ auctioned) to achieve an overall target of 175 GW,” Director General of Solar Power Developers Association Shekhar Dutt told PTI.
He also said that the implementation of renewable projects and innovation in tendering them to attract investors would play a key role in 2021. According to him, India needs to design innovative tenders with the inclusion of wind, solar and energy storage to ensure that renewable can replace fossil fuels to a great extent.
This year has been challenging for the renewable energy sector but the industry has been able to withstand the crisis caused by the pandemic with support of the government. Moreover, confidence of investors in the sector has soared further as was evident from solar power tariff breaching the psychological barrier of Rs 2 per unit.
Solar power tariff dropped to an all-time low of Rs 1.99 per unit in an auction of projects of 500 MW capacity by Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) in December. Prior to that, the tariff had declined to a record low of Rs 2 per unit in an auction for 1,070 MW projects conducted by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) in November.
In July this year, solar power tariffs fell to a low of Rs 2.36 per unit in an auction of 2 GW capacities by the SECI. Now, in order the the maintain the momentum, the government will have to be more proactive and innovative to attract investors into the sector.
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India had set an ambitious target of having 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022. This includes 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from biomass and 5 GW from small hydropower. Talking about the challenge of bringing required investment next year to achieve the 175 GW target, Union Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh said, ”We are going to come out with more innovative bids (in 2021),” he told .
First Published: IST