NEW DELHI, Nov 26: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that India launching an unparalleled journey in the last six years had increased its installed renewable energy capacity by two and half times and that the country’s renewable power capacity presently was the 4th largest in the world.
Outlining the future programme, Modi said for the next 10 years, India had huge renewable energy deployment plans which were likely to generate business opportunities of 20 billion dollars per year.
“There are huge renewable energy deployment plans for the next decade,” PM Modi declared. “These are likely to generate business prospects of the order of around 20 billion dollars per year. I invite investors, developers and businesses to join India’s renewable energy journey,” the prime minister said.
Modi was inaugurating the 3rd Global Renewable Energy Investment Meeting and Expo (RE-Invest 2020) through video conferencing. The summit is organised by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The theme for RE-Invest 2020 is “Innovations for Sustainable Energy Transition.”
The Prime Minister expressed happiness that in the renewable energy sector, within a short time the progress from megawatts to gigawatts in generation capacity and “One Sun, One World, One Grid” are becoming a reality, all of which were discussed in the earlier editions.
The Prime Minister said India’s annual renewable energy capacity addition had been exceeding that of coal based thermal power since 2017. He said investing in renewable energy early on even when it was not affordable has helped in achieving the scale, which is bringing costs down. He said India was showing to the world that sound environmental policies could also be sound economics. He said “we have ensured energy efficiency is not limited to one ministry or department, instead it has been made a target for the entire government. All our policies have a consideration of achieving energy efficiency.”
The Prime Minister said after the success of Performance Linked Incentives (PLI) in electronics manufacturing, India had decided to give similar incentives to high efficiency solar modules. He stressed that ensuring “Ease of doing business” is India’s utmost priority and dedicated Project Development Cells have been established to facilitate investors. He invited investors, developers and businesses to join India’s renewable energy journey.
The three-day RE-Invest 2020 summit is being attended by over 75 international ministerial delegations, over 1,000 global industry leaders and 50,000 delegates. The summit will discuss renewables and future energy choices, and an exhibition of manufacturers, developers, investors and innovators.
(Manas Dasgupta)