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India is likely to achieve the self declared Sustainable Development Goal of lowering fossil fuel share in the energy mix earlier than committed according to Secretary, Ministry of Power, Ajay Kumar Bhalla.
Speaking at the launch of a project partnership between Energy Efficiency Services Ltd and Global Environment Facility, Bhalla said, “India currently has 330 GW of power generation capacity. Of this, 220 GW is fossil fuels based. We are promoting a target of 40 per cent non-fossil fuel capacities by 2030. And we will be doing it much earlier than that.”
“We have a target of 175 GW of renewable energy sources by 2022. If we put hydro there and other non-fossil fuels, we will definitely be achieving the target much earlier than 2030,” he added.
The 40 per cent non-fossil fuel target is a commitment India had made at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21).
Bhalla’s comments gain significance as the next round of UN Climate Change Conference (COP 23) is going to be held later this month. The conference is likely to set the roadmap for countries to achieve the goals they have set for themselves.
At the event, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) partnered with public sector undertaking, Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) for ‘Creating and Sustaining Markets for Energy Efficiency’.
“This project will receive a composite funding of $ 454 million comprised of the GEF grant of $20 million and Co-financing of $434 million in the form of loans and equity, including a $200 million loan from the Asian Development Bank,” an EESL statement added.
Increased ADB funding
Also speaking at the event, ADB’s Country Director in India, Kenichi Yokoyama said, “We are working on extending our partnerships and growing in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and North Eastern states.”
While announcing its Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for 2018-2022, ADB said that it plans to raise its annual lending to India. In a September, an ADB statement said that this will be to a maximum of $4 billion to support the country to accelerate inclusive economic transformation toward upper middle-income status.
Yokoyama told BusinessLine , “We are very keen on energy efficiency project expansion, and also supporting the distribution systems. Annually, we are lending about $2.2 billion in the sovereign as well as $600 million to $700 million in the project side, so that’s about $3 billion. We are now envisaging $3 billion for the sovereign public sector lending, along with a billion for private sector lending.”
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