Over the next five years, India’s renewable energy sector is likely to provide business opportunities worth $160 billion, according to the Survey.

“It offers very good opportunity for businesses to set and scale up industry, leapfrog technologies and create volumes.

“Some of India’s major immediate plans on renewable energy include scaling up cumulative installed capacity to 170 gigawatts (GW) and establishing a National University for Renewable Energy,” the Survey stated.

As on December 31, 2014 India’s total renewable power capacity has reached 33.8 GW of which wind energy continues to dominate the sector with 66 per cent of installed capacity, followed by bio mass, small hydro power and solar power.

India scaled up the National Solar Mission target by five fold to 100 GW by 2022.

“The aim of this initiative is primarily to provide energy access to nearly 300 million households. The collateral benefit would be lower annual emissions of CO2 by about 165 million tonnes,” the Survey stated.

Fossil fuels “With more than half of the India of 2030 yet to be built, we have an opportunity to avoid excessive dependence on fossil fuel-based energy systems and carbon lock-ins that many industrialised countries face today,” it added.

Meanwhile, the clean energy cess on coal which was introduced in 2010 was doubled in 2014 to ₹100 per tonne. Total collections under the National Clean Energy Fund has reached ₹17,000 crore as on September 2014 and 46 clean energy projects worth around ₹16,000 crore have been recommended support out of this fund.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW