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India has 900 GW of commercially exploitable sources of renewable energy if 3 per cent of the country’s wasteland is made available, according to the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy. The renewable sources of energy include wind and solar power, biomass and waste-to-energy apart from small hydro power plants.
The solar power potential of the country remains largely untapped with only 3 GW of installed power compared with 750 GW of potential. Wind power, on the other side, has been developed at a much faster pace with an installed capacity of 22.5 GW as on December 31, 2014 compared with a total potential of 100 GW.
A State-wise list of renewable energy potential has been drawn up by the National Institute of Wind Energy, National Institute of Solar Energy, Indian Institute of Science for and the Alternate Hydro Energy Centre.
The Ministry’s annual report for 2014-15 pegs the highest renewable energy potential in Rajasthan at 148 GW followed by Jammu and Kashmir with 118 GW. Both the States also have the highest amount of solar energy potential.
While Rajasthan has embraced solar power and has the second highest installed capacity at 851 MW, J&K’s solar power potential remains completely untapped.
However, despite the potential, only around 34 GW of renewable generation capacity is installed in the country, largely driven by wind power plants.
Though the government has a target of having 175 GW of renewable energy generation by 2020, capacity addition in 2014-15 has been slow.
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