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India: World Leader in the Energy Transition

  • 16 Jul 2021

The Union Minister of Power and New and Renewable Energy, Shri RK Singh addressed the conference of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on “Aatmairbhar Bharat - Self Reliance for Renewable Energy Manufacturing”. He stated that India had emerged as world leader in the Energy Transition.

Achievements

  • India had one of the fastest rates of growth of Renewable Energy capacity in the world.
  • India has pledged in COP-21 in Paris that by 2030; 40% of its power generation capacity will be from non-fossil fuel sources andhad already reached at 38.5% and if the capacity under installation is added, it comes to 48.5%.
  • India will continue to be a world leader in the coming years as well and as it has set a target of 450 GW of Renewable Energy capacity by 2030.
  • India had achieved universal access by connecting every village and every hamlet under Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana Scheme and connecting every household under Saubhagya Scheme.
  • It was the fastest and the largest expansion of access in the world.This had also resulted in the demand for electricity going up rapidly.
  • India has already touched 200 GW of demand even when the effects of COVID-19 was still there. The demand had crossed what it was during pre-COVID time and it is expected that electricity demand will continue to rise.This gives us the space for adding more Renewable Energy capacity.

Issues: Dumping

  • Some countries had been dumping solar cells and modules at very low price and harming our local industry.To prevent dumping it has been decided to impose customs duty on imported cells and modules so as to provide protection to Indian Industry from dumping.
  • The mechanism of ALMM (Approved List of Models and Manufacturers) will also provide protection to Indian Industries.

Other Initiatives: Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia

  • India will also emerge as a leader in Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia.
  • India proposes to green industry sectors to replace Grey Hydrogen (drawn from imported natural gas) with Green Hydrogen and for this it will come out with a Green Hydrogen Purchase Obligation for different sectors like petroleum and fertilizer. This will also provide huge demand for domestically manufactured solar and wind equipments as well as storage.
  • Green ammonia is made with hydrogen that comes from water electrolysis powered by alternative energy.

Support to Industries

  • Government proposes to come out with Rules and Regulations providing for easier Open Access for those industries which want to become green i.e. which want to rely on green energy for their functioning.Industry will be able to either set up green energy manufacturing capacity itself or through a developer and draw power from it through open access.The surcharge on open access will also be rationalized so as to ensure that open access is not saddled with unfair levies.