While remarking that India ranks fourth globally in terms of renewable energy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the country has increased its installed capacity in this sector by 2.5 times and the installed solar capacity by more than 13 times.
India has scaled its non-fossil fuel-based power generation to 134 GW, which is about 35 per cent of the country’s total power generation, Modi said in a message read out at the inaugural session of First World Solar Technology Summit by Union Power Minister Raj Kumar Singh.
“We are confident of increasing it to 220 GW by 2022,” the Prime Minister referring to India’s renewable energy production.
Mr Raj Kumar Singh is President of International Solar Alliance (ISA) Assembly.
READ ALSO: India joins hypersonic missile club
Referring to India’s support to ISA member-countries, Modi said: “India is providing capacity-building support to ISA members through its ITEC training programme. We have also set up a Project Preparation Facility to develop bankable solar energy projects in ISA member-countries with the help of EXIM Bank of India.”
Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also addressed the inaugural session. He announced that five Public Sector Undertakings under his Ministry will join ISA’s Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action (ISA-CSCA) as corporate partners.
He said that the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, and GAIL (India) Limited will contribute to ISA Corpus Fund.
Additionally, the Mint reported that the Andhra Pradesh government is expediting efforts to float India’s largest solar tender for setting up a 10 gigawatt (GW) capacity.
The state has about 7.7 GW of solar and wind projects and is home to India’s second-largest installed capacity of clean energy, accounting for around 10% of the country’s green energy capacity, with investments of ₹60,000 crores. Andhra Pradesh has 4,092 MW of installed wind power projects awarded through feed-in tariffs. Also, the resource-rich state has 3,230 MW of solar power projects awarded through competitive bidding, the business news publication said.
READ ALSO: Indian researchers develop eco-friendly lithium batteries