Renewable energy projects worth $197 billion underway in India

New Delhi: Union minister of State for ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Bhagwant Khuba has said that renewable energy projects worth nearly $197 billion are underway in India,

The Minister stated this, while addressing the event ‘Intersolar Europe 2022’ in Munich, Germany and urged the developed countries to invest in India. Khuba said that India offers great opportunity for investments in the renewable energy space.

According to the ministry, a total of 493 projects are underway including 464 government-aided projects.

“India offers a great opportunity for investments. Currently around $196.98 billion worth of projects are underway in India. I once again invite all the developed countries and major RE players to utilise the opportunity India is offering to the world,” he said.

The minister said that India’s “vast renewable energy resource potential and strong policy backing provide a strong foundation for achieving these goals”.

He said that India has seen incredible growth of renewable energy capacity in last seven years and has achieved target of 40% cumulative electric capacity from non-fossil fuel in 2021, nine years ahead of set target of 2030.

The minister also said that Centre is committed to promoting domestic manufacturing in the solar photovoltaic (PV) sector to achieve its ambitious deployment goals. Several policy measures have been undertaken to support the domestic PV manufacturing sector.

The focus on renewable energy has gained momentum as Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed to achieve net zero carbon emission by 2070 at the COP-26 summit in Glasgow.

In April last year, the union cabinet approved the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme ‘National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules’ to promote manufacturing of high efficiency solar PV modules, including the upstage vertical components like solar PV cells, wafers, ingots, polysilicon.

Letters of award have been issued under the PLI scheme to three successful bidders for setting up about 9 GW capacity of fully integrated solar PV module manufacturing units for ₹4,500 crore of initial allocation.

Further, in this year’s budget, the Finance Minister announced an additional outlay of ₹19,500 crore. With the enhanced incentive scheme, India is expected to have a solar manufacturing capacity of 50 GW in India within the next 4-5 years.