Expect $350 billion investments in RE sector by 2030: Pralhad Joshi

India’s renewable energy (RE) sector is likely to attract $350 billion investments over five years, with major expansion plans in domestic module manufacturing capacity and additional 41 gigawatt (Gw) of energy storage capacity to support the larger 500 Gw clean energy target by 2030, New and Renewable Energy Minister Pralhad Joshi said on Wednesday in a fireside chat with Sudheer Pal Singh at the Business Standard Manthan event.

- BS REPORTER

“The NITI Aayog recently projected an investment requirement of $22 trillion for the achievement of India’s net zero target by 2070. We have invested more than $150 billion in the last ten years, and our requirement will be around $350 billion to reach 500 Gw of non-fossil capacity by 2030,” Joshi said.

He said India has set the renewable energy context for the entire world, becoming the only country among the G20 nations that has achieved non-fossil fuel-based installed power capacity of more than 50 per cent, five years in advance of the national target. “We are going to further increase it beyond our target given by the Honourable Prime Minister.

We are going in the right direction as our renewable energy growth is quite well on track. What India has achieved on the renewable energy front in the past 11 years is really pathbreaking. In this period, our solar power capacity has grown from just 2.8 Gw to more than 140 Gw today. It is the same story for wind energy. Our overall renewable energy capacity has grown to more than 195 Gw today, excluding hydro,” he said.

The minister also said the country’s module manufacturing capacity stands at 140 Gw. “We have achieved surplus production on that front, and we are now able to export the modules too.

The government has allocated more than ₹24,000 crore for the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for High Efficiency Solar PV Modules,” he said.

Joshi said the government in 2014 resolved to produce affordable energy from the Sun and make it available to the masses. “That has now been proven by the government under the visionary leadership of the Honourable PM. That is why today we have more than 30 lakh rooftop solar installations in the country. By that itself, we are generating around 14 Gw power. This is the scale at which we are operating,” Joshi said.