India targets $100 billion investment for clean power

Clean and Green. This seems to be the mantra of the Modi government, which is looking to net investments worth $100 billion over the next four years for the development of clean power.

Speaking at The Economist India Summit on September 11, India’s Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal underlined that the new government will extend its support to domestic manufactures of solar panels and is working on a five-year plan.

He added that a Rs. 200-crore (32 million USD) research and development pilot project to examine the potential of solar and thermal power with IIT Jodhpur has been approved.

The new administration in Delhi has made a major push to attract investment, both domestic and international, into India’s budding clean energy sector.

On September 2, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed agreements with the Small Industries Development Bank of India and the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited to provide official development assistance (ODA) of 30 billion Japanese Yen (2.8 billion USD) each to the two institutions to enhance energy accessibility in India.

India, which became the world’s third largest producer of electricity in the year 2013 with 4.8% global share in electricity generation, still depends on coal as its major energy source for electricity.

In electricity generation alone, coal accounted for a 59%, while renewable energy sources including hydroelectricity account for 29% of the energy source. The rest was sourced from natural gas (9%), nuclear (2%) and oil (1%).

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