The full fledged detailed survey indicates that while there has been massive rise in the renewable energy capacity, fossil fuels, especially coal, would continue to remain one of the crucial source of energy.
Nirmala Sitharaman, the Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs yesterday had shared the Economic Survey 2019 in Lok Sabha just one day before the Budget day. According to the Survey data, renewable energy sources are a strategical national resource. The report quotes “Harnessing these resources might play an important role in India’s vision to achieve social equity and energy transition with energy security and a stronger economy and climate and change mitigation.”
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While providing enormous amount of energy accessibility is very crucial, it is also significant that it cannot come at a high cost of environmental sacrifice and in the past, the advanced economies have done it successfully without threatening their environment, stated the survey.
In the Indian electricity mix, the contribution of electricity produced from renewable sources is progressively increasing. In exclusion to hydro (above 25 MW) the share of total electricity generated from renewable energy sources increased to 10 per cent in 2018-19 from 6 per cent in 2014-15, the survey stated. As per figurative mention in the survey, it can be noted that India now ranks fourth in wind power, fifth in solar power and fifth in overall renewable power installed capacity, globally.
However, apart from significant growth in energy production from renewable sources, fossil fuel will always be an important source of power the survey stated.
She also added India huge consumption and demand for energy, which is the main goal of economic development, and the government’s main intention is to assure continuous access to sustainable and clean energy.
“India, therefore, needs to quadruple its per-capita energy consumption to meet the rising aspirations of its citizens. This will also enable India to achieve the human development status of an upper-middle income country,” it said.
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The survey also predicted allotment of additional investment requirement in renewable plants for up to 2022 at about $80 billion at today’s prices and an investment of around $250 billion for the period 2023-30.
India’s renewable energy sector will offer investment opportunity of $30 billion every year for the 10 years and beyond, but the country cannot wish away conventional sources of energy like oil and coal as demand is forecast to gallop in the next few decades, the Economic Survey said.
The share of renewables in total electricity generation of India was around 10% in 2018-19 compared to around 6% in 2014-15. Globally, India stands fourth in wind power, fifth in solar power and fifth in renewable power installed capacity.
The cumulative renewable power installed capacity has more than doubled to 78 GW in March 2019 from 35 GW in March 2014. In addition, around 27 GW renewable power capacity is under installation and over 38 GW under bidding to achieve an installed capacity of renewable based power of 175 GW by 2022.