India- The Leader of Renewable Energy?

December 19, 2016March 7, 2017 by NILAKSHI PATHAK

India is a land of diversity. This statement stays true even for the geography of the country. India has a huge potential for harbouring renewable energy and the good news is that’s what India is doing! Recently, India has grabbed the 4th position in global wind power installed capacity.

With the year coming to an end, it’s time to look at the efforts made by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

What Has MNRE Done To Get International Attention?

Clean energy is the energy that everyone should opt for and even our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi believes in it. As a result of which, India has taken up the largest renewable capacity expansion programme in the world. This clearly indicates that India has plans for increasing the share of clean energy by focusing on the renewable source of energy. Since a long time, we have been abusing non-renewable resources and in a very soon, we will surely see the consequences of our actions. By focusing on renewable energy now, we are basically trying to create a balance in the earth for our survival. The main reasons for taking renewable energy seriously are:

Energy security

Electricity shortage

Energy access

Climate change

India has done a fairly good job in the past two and a half years in the field of renewable energy. The result is evident from the fact that 14.30 GW of renewable energy was added to our capacity under Grid Connected Renewable Power. The Grid-Connected Renewable Power consists of:

Solar Power

Wind Power

Small Hydro Power

Bio Power

Such a progress is enough to boost the confidence of the Government of India. Thus, in a report submitted to United Nations Frame Work Convention on Climate Change on Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), India has claimed that 40% of the cumulative Electric power capacity will be acquired by India from the energy which is based on non-fossil fuel. Green Climate Fund will help India in walking through this path.

How Is the Government Promoting Renewable Energy?

We have been studying about renewable energy from a very long time. But only learning about things is not enough, we should know how we have to implement it in real life. We know that and therefore we are practically working to increase our share in clean energy. Apart from that the government is actively participating in promoting renewable energy all across the country by offering incentives like

Generation-based incentives

Capital and interest subsidies

Viability gap funding

Concessional finance

Fiscal incentives

Know About The National Solar Mission

National Solar Mission was launched in the year of 2010. The short term goal of the mission is to promote development and to generate power using solar energy. The long-term goal of the mission is to develop solar energy to such a level that it could compete with the power of fossil-based energy options. The cost of practically creating and using solar energy is high in our country. The cost was aimed to be reduced under this mission by the following ways:

Long-term policy

Large scale deployment goals

Aggressive R&D

Domestic production of critical raw materials, components and products

Major programmes/schemes that have been launched in the past two years for achieving the target of 175GW of renewable energy by 2022 are:

Solar Park

Solar Defence Scheme

Solar scheme for CPUs

Solar PV power plants on Canal Tops

Solar Pump

Solar Rooftop

What is The Estimated Potential of Renewable Energy in India?

If we fully utilise the benefit of renewable energy in our country, the dependence on fossil fuel will be reduced vastly. The estimated potential of renewable energy is India are: