India’s Clean Energy Transition
India is on course to achieve its renewable energy transition target and stood at 177,000 Megawatts of non-fossil capacity by February, 2023.
The country has emerged as one of the world leaders in energy transition. In line with the Prime Minister's announcement at COP26, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has been working towards achieving 500 GW of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2070.
India is also one of the most attractive destination for investment in renewables in the world; close to $10 billion of investments is expected in 2023, according to Bank of America Corp.
In this year’s Union Budget, the Government has allocated Rs. 350 billion to achieve its power generation capacity target through clean, renewable energy sources. The budget also outlays Rs. 197 billion for the National Green Hydrogen Mission, which as per experts, must translate into a sharp growth in utility-scale power generation capacities.
India currently has an installed power generating capacity of 409 GW, of which the renewable energy (non-hydro) share is almost 29 percent (119.5 GW). A capacity of 76.13 GW (of renewables) was under various stages of implementation and a capacity of 36.44 GW was under various stages of bidding, in November, 2022.
As the energy demand increases further in this third-largest energy consuming economy of the world, clean energy will play a more important role.
The country aims to scale up the use of modern bioenergy across the economy. The IEA expects India to overtake Canada and China in the next few years to become the third largest ethanol market worldwide after the US and Brazil.
A significant progress has been made in the country in increasing the amount of ethanol blending in gasoline from 1.53% in 2013-14 to 10.17% in 2022. The government has advanced its target to achieve 20% ethanol blending in petrol from 2030 to 2025-26.
Green hydrogen will play a major role in achieving the net zero and decarbonizing the hard-to-abate sectors. As part of its aim to achieve its net zero carbon emission goal by 2070, the Indian government has released a blueprint for its National Green Hydrogen Mission which has set consumption targets for various industries, including the oil and gas and fertilizer industries.
India is expected to have the capacity to produce 5mn tonnes/year of green hydrogen by 2030, with the potential to reach 10mn tonnes/year with growth of export markets, says MNRE. This will result in abatement of 28 million tonnes of CO2.
These efforts altogether will bring in energy transition in the country resulting in cleaner environment and reduced dependence on fossil fuels.
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