Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The World Bank on Friday announced it has approved a USD 1.5 billion (Rs. 12,500 crores) financing for India’s transition to clean energy, envisaging scaling up renewable energy, producing green hydrogen, supporting carbon markets, and stimulating climate financing.
“The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved USD 1.5 billion in financing to accelerate India’s development of low-carbon energy. The financing will help India promote low-carbon energy by scaling up renewable energy, developing green hydrogen, and stimulating climate finance for low-carbon energy investments.”
The First Low-Carbon Energy Programmatic Development Policy Operation – the first in a series of two envisaged operations – will support India in developing green hydrogen, the WB added.
“The financing required to implement India’s energy transition is such that public sector funding alone will not be sufficient. Building on recent successes, this operation will help stimulate private financing and other support by addressing viability funding gaps, reducing off-taker risks, boosting grid integration of renewables, and stimulating demand for renewable energy.”
“The program will support the successful implementation of the National Green Hydrogen Mission that aims to stimulate USD 100 billion in private sector investment by 2030,” Auguste Tano Kouame, World Bank Country Director for India, said.
The World Bank remains committed to supporting India’s low-carbon transition by complementing public financing and enabling private sector investments, he added.
The program aims to scale up renewable energy supply thereby reducing costs and improving grid integration. This will help India reach its committed 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.
The Centre plans to issue bids for 50 GW of renewable energy each year from FY24 to FY28, which will avoid carbon emissions of 40 million tons per annum by 2026.
“A national carbon market is essential to provide a level-playing field between low-carbon energy and fossil fuels. This program will support policies for a national carbon credit trading scheme to launch a national carbon market. In January 2023, India issued its first sovereign green bond. The program will support policy actions for the issuance of $6 billion in sovereign green bonds by 2026.,” the World Bank said.
India is among the fastest-growing large economies. While its per capita energy consumption is only a third of the global average, India’s energy demand might grow rapidly as the economy expands, it added.
“This calls for a phasing down of fossil-based energy sources in line with India’s goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2070. The industrial sector is the main driver for future growth of energy demand and emissions, and green hydrogen can play a critical role in initially decarbonizing the hard-to-abate industrial sectors, such as fertilizer and refinery industries, and later heavy industries, including iron and steel,” the World Bank said.
India has achieved impressive progress in renewable energy installed capacity and a decline in costs. Scaling up the production of renewable energy will accelerate the transition to low-carbon electricity and support the emergence and expansion of the green hydrogen sector, it noted.
The World Bank pointed out that this operation is only one piece of its comprehensive support for the energy transition in India. It is aligned with the Government of India’s energy security strategy. The operation is also aligned with the Bank’s Hydrogen for Development (H4D) Partnership launched at CoP27.
The USD 1.44 billion loan is from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and is facilitated by a UK USD 1 billion backstop aimed at boosting the World Bank’s climate change financing to India. A USD 56.57 million credit from the International Development Association (IDA) is from a recommitment of canceled IDA credit balances.