Clean Energy Targets

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India has achieved clean energy targets nine years ahead of schedule – stated the Union Power Ministry.

• India has installed 162 GW (1 GW is 1,000 MW) of renewable energy capacity, which is 41% of the 402 GW of electricity installed.
• India reached this target on November 2021.
• In 2015, India committed to ensuring that 40% of its energy would be from renewable sources by 2030 as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).

New Target

• At the COP26 India is committed to achieving 500 GW of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by the year 2030.

Challenges in Achieving the Target:

Mobilization of the Necessary Finance:

• Gearing up the banking sector for arranging finances for larger deployment goals, exploring low-interest rate, long-term international funding, and developing a suitable mechanism for risk mitigation or sharing by addressing both technical and financial bottlenecks are major challenges.

Land Acquisition:

• Identification of land with Renewable Energy potential, its conversion, clearance from land ceiling Act, decision on land lease rent, clearance from revenue department, and other such clearances take time.
• State governments have to play a major role in acquisition of land for RE projects.

Creating Ecosystem:

• Creating an innovation and manufacturing ecosystem in the country.

Others:

• Integrating a larger share of renewable with the grid.
• Enabling supply of firm and dispatchable power from renewable.
• Enabling penetration of renewables in the so called hard to decarbonize sectors.