New Delhi: Union Minister for New & Renewable Energy, R. K. Singh said India has been taking decisive steps to contribute to the fight against climate change, despite its low per capita emissions.
Addressing the inaugural session of the one-day High-level Conference on New Technologies for Clean Energy Transition, New Delhi RK Singh said “Our per capita emissions are one of the lowest in the world, about one-third of the global average. Per capita emissions of the developed world are typically about three to four times the world average”.
The Minister said, “Our government led by the Prime Minister has been very clear that we need to contribute towards the fight against climate change.”
The conference is being organized jointly by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, the Government of India; the Asian Development Bank, and the International Solar Energy Society.
RK Singh who is also President of International Solar Alliance said that “Net Zero” will remain only a goal unless the world gets together to solve the problems of lack of diversification of solar manufacturing capacity and associated supply chains”
“India has emerged as a country with one of the fastest rates of the energy transition, the country has been facing challenges, arising due to shortfalls in manufacturing capacity”.
Raising concerns over the storage of electricity, the Minister said that storage remains critical for greater utilization and Round-the-Clock provision of renewable energy.
“Storage is a problem, since though the developed world kept talking about the need for energy transition, they did not do anything about it, they did not add storage and did not make progress on existing technologies” he added.
He said, “Today, about 90% of the solar manufacturing capacity is in one country, mostly dependent on one chemistry, i.e., lithium-ion. This thus raises supply chain challenges, which came to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Speaking about the road ahead, the Minister said that India is confident of exceeding the targets it has set for 2030.
“Today, our established non-fossil-fuel capacity is approximately 186 GW, out of which about 179 GW is renewable, the remaining being nuclear. We have planned to add 50 GW of renewable capacity each year, going to 500 GW of renewable capacity by 2030″ he said.
The Minister said We have pledged in Glasgow that we will have 50% of our established capacity coming from non-fossil fuels by 2030, and we are confident that we will able to achieve 65%. We will also achieve way beyond our target of reducing our emission intensity by 45% by 2030.”
The Minister informed that about 5.8 million tonnes of manufacturing capacity of green ammonia are coming up in different parts of India.
“We shall continue in our drive to decarbonize our economy. This is not only about renewables, but also about other technologies like green hydrogen and green ammonia. We are well on our way to emerging as one of the biggest manufacturers in the world of green hydrogen and green ammonia” he said
“This is just the beginning. We are going to put mandates on different departments to switch over to green hydrogen and green ammonia, whether it is for fertilizers, refining, or any other sphere where fossil fuels are required” the Minister said.
The one-day High-level Conference on New Technologies for Clean Energy Transition, was organized in New Delhi on the sidelines of the Sixth Session of the International Solar Alliance Assembly.
