New Delhi: India is planning to seek 500 gigawatts of renewable energy generation capacity by 2028, according to a January 7 article in the Economic Times of India.
Anand Kumar, MNRE
The announcement was made by Anand Kumar in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), as part of the government’s target of sourcing 40 per cent of the country’s electricity generation from non-fossil fuels by 2030.
Of the total, 350 GW would come from solar, 140 GW from wind, and the remaining from small hydro and biomass. The figure excludes large hydro. If hydro is included, the figure will grow by another 60 to 75 GW.
Reaching that figure would mean adding 30 GW of solar energy and 10 GW of wind energy every year, Kumar said. Further, if the country’s gross domestic product grows at a rate of 6.5 per cent, the requirement for electricity generation capacity would reach 840 GW by 2030. India’s growth rate has exceeded 6% year over year since 2013, and is expected to hold at 2018’s over 7% till 2022 according to Statista (https://www.statista.com/).
“Out of 840 GW, we plan to install a little more than 500 GW in renewables. We have installed 75 GW renewable energy capacity in the country and another 46 GW is under various stages of installations,” added Kumar.