India to achieve 500 GW renewables target before 2030 deadline: RK Singh

New Delhi: Union Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister RK Singh on Monday said India will achieve its 500 GW renewable energy target before the 2030 deadline.

Addressing FICCI's India Energy Transition Summit 2023, Singh also said had India not lost two years due to COVID-19, the nation would have achieved 50 percent of its power generation capacity from RE non-fossil fuels, by now.

India has 424 GW of power generation capacity which includes around 180 GW from non-fossil fuels and another 88 GW is in the works, the minister said.

The country has a target of 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.

"We will achieve 500 GW of renewable energy (RE) well before 2030," he said.

Singh also said India's energy transition programme is at the top in the world. The RE capacity addition is the fastest in the world.

New and Renewable Energy Secretary Bhupinder Singh Bhalla said India added 15 GW of renewable energy in the last fiscal year (2022-23) which would be increased to 25 GW in 2023-24 and further to 40 GW in 2024-25.

He also said 50 GW of RE projects would go for bidding annually from this year onwards.

The minister noted that despite constituting 17 percent of the world's population, India contributes only 4 percent to the global carbon dioxide load.

The minister further emphasised that India's per capita emissions are approximately 2.2 tonnes, significantly lower than the global average of 6.3 tonnes, accentuating the country's responsible energy consumption habits.

The minister underscored the government's commitment to environmental stewardship.

He affirmed that India is the only major global economy whose energy transition actions are aligned with limiting the global temperature rise to under two degrees Celsius.

Moreover, he also mentioned India's achievement of all its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) nearly a decade earlier than committed.

Subhrakant Panda, President of FICCI and Managing Director of Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys said, "We will require investments upwards of Rs 20 trillion in transmission networks, evacuation infrastructure, and energy storage system, among others."

Shivanand Nimbargi, Chair of FICCI Renewable Energy CEOs Council and Managing Director & CEO of Ayana Renewable Power, expressed unwavering confidence in India's trajectory towards renewable energy targets.

He underlined that the path to 2070 required enormous financial investment.

"We would be needing hundreds of gigawatts in terms of realizing our dream of net zero by 2070. And in terms of the investment itself, I think we are looking at a huge investment, something like 14 to 17 trillion USD between now and then", he added.

The event also saw the launch of the FICCI Deloitte report - India's energy-transition pathways: A net-zero perspective..

The report posits that India's final energy demand is expected to double to about 1200 Mtoe (Millions of tonnes of oil equivalent) by 2070 in a net-zero scenario with aggressive energy efficiency measures.

The report estimates India will require a massive USD 15 trillion investment to achieve its net-zero emissions target by 2070.

It highlights three fundamental pillars that anchor India's energy transition ambitions and are expected to address approximately 90 percent of the nation's emissions.

These pillars are grid decarbonisation, industrial decarbonisation, and transport transition.

Dilip Oommen, Executive Vice President, Arcelor Mittal, and CEO, AM/NS India, stated that hydrogen as a viable but costly solution.

Oommen focused on reducing the cost of renewable energy, a key factor in green hydrogen production.

He also cited the potential of natural gas during the transition period and the role of carbon trading to incentivise green initiatives.

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