Investment in renewable energy concentrated in developing countries: DG, ISA

Goa: While huge amount of investment is occurring in the renewable energy sector, a large proportion of it goes to developing countries and the rest of the world get hardly any fund, Ajay Mathur, Director General of International Solar Alliance, said on Thursday.

Talking to news agency Press Trust of India at the sidelines of an event during G20 fourth Energy Transitions Working Group meeting, Mathur said that the net zero emission target is possible.

"We see a huge amount of investment occurring in renewable energy in general and solar in particular. In 2022, the investment in renewable area was approximately 500 billion dollars of which half was in the solar," he said.

Mathur said, "The problem is that the vast amount of this money went to the countries like China and large emerging developing countries while rest of the world, hardly got anything."

He said that the investment in Africa (African continent) for example was less than 5 percent.

Mathur said that the investment is "extremely differentiated, it is not universal".

Speaking about the challenges faced by the solar energy sector, Mathur said the "large amount of solar occurring particularly as large solar farms and not as small solar across the world, where it effects common people".

He said that the challenge is that the solar energy goes in the small application sector as well.

Without naming any country, Mathur said that the problem is also that there is huge concentration of production capacity in one country.

"We need to work to reduce supply chain constraints by geographical diversification," he added.

Mathur said that renewable energy can get the world towards net zero emission goals.

"I think we are at the stage globally where renewables are most effective cost-effective electricity solution. I am looking forward to price of batteries falling in next 2-3 years so that the solar plus battery becomes the electricity source of choice," he said.

Damilola Ogunbiyi, special representative of the US Secretary General, told PTI that it was really good for the government of India to stress on the importance of renewable energy "specially in my continent Africa".

"UN Secretary General is completely committed to renewable energy specially in the developing countries. I was very excited to participate in the event," she said.

Ogyunbiyi said that the solar energy will be main source of energy. it is one of the cleanest energy and really helps to meet the targets of net zero emission by 2050.

"One of the learning from the experiences is that its very important to have strong policy and strong implementation capacity," she said.

The UN Secretary-General representative also said that it is important to be investment ready.

"You have to have the data to know where to put the solar energy and how much investment is necessary that will make for the successful implementation of solar energy in the developing countries," she added.

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