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AsiaElec RENEWABLES AsiaElec

India’s confident of meeting

renewable target

INDIA INDIA aims to increase its non-fossil fuel energy (ISA-CSCA).
capacity from 134 GW today to 220 GW by the The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas
end of 2022. said they would joint as Corporate Partners and
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said would contribute to the ISA’s Corpus Fund.
on August 8 that the falling costs of green tech- Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural
nology will mean decreasing tariffs for end-users. Gas Dharmendra Pradhan said that Oil and
Modi made the prediction in a speech to Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC), Indian Oil Corp.
the International Solar Alliance’s (ISA) World (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd
Solar Technology Summit, although his words (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd
were actually delivered by New and Renewable (HPCL) and GAIL (India) would pay into the
Energy Minister R K Singh. ISA’s Corpus Fund.
“We have scaled up our non-fossil fuel-based “In order to reduce carbon footprint, these
generation to 134 GW, which is about 35% of companies will be focusing more on green
our total power generation. We are confident of energy investments such as renewables, biofuels
increasing it to 220 GW by 2022,” Singh said. and hydrogen going forward. We are also actively
Modi’s 220-GW target includes hydro. encouraging industry in general, and oil & gas
Excluding hydro, the government aims to have companies in particular, [to] become partici-
175 GW of renewable capacity by 2022, of which pants [in] this solar transition,” he added.
100 GW will be solar, up from 35 GW at present. As an example, Pradhan said that IOC, HPCL
“Technology holds the key to scale up the use and BPCL would install solar panels at up to 50%
of solar energy. Technological advancements of their filling stations. The three currently oper-
have already brought about a significant reduc- ate 270 MW of solar capacity and aim to install
tion in the price of solar power. A further reduc- another 60 MW this year.
tion in the cost will provide a major boost to the India currently imports 80% of its solar cells
use and expansion of renewable energy,” Modi and modules from China, and the government
said in the message. wants to boost local manufacturing capacity in a
The ISA has 67 member states and aims to bid to reduce reliance on imports.
have 1,000 GW of solar capacity in those coun- Pradhan also said at the summit that Indian
tries by 2030. It also aims to facilitate investment industry has expressed its interest in setting up
of at least $1 trillion. with government support up to 10 GW per year
The summit also saw five state-owned oil of solar power equipment manufacturing capac-
and gas companies say they would join the ity. ™
ISA’s Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action

Week 36 09•September•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P7