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Commercial & Industrial Consumers are our Partners in Transition towards Net Zero & Decarbonization: Lalit Bohra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
Mar 03, 2023
India is decoupling economic growth from emissions: Venu Gopal Mothkoor, Senior Specialist, NITI Aayog.
NEW
DELHI. 03 MARCH 2023: Addressing FICCI's Seminar on
Renewable Energy (RE) Transition for Commercial and Industrial Consumers, Mr Lalit
Bohra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of
India said the PLI scheme of Rs 24,000 crores
would ensure upward integration from polysilicon to modules and will help India
in becoming a net exporter of modules.
He said, "this Rs 24,000 crore PLI
scheme is going to be a game changer, and will boost solar module capacity in
India".
Mr Bohra also elucidated several
demand-side and supply-side interventions by the government. These include
renewable power obligations on the discoms to ensure that discoms have a
certain percentage of their electricity from the renewable source. Besides, he
underlined the waiver of the interstate transmission service charges to allow
developers to establish plants in any part of the country and financial support
for the residential rooftop scheme for the decentralized RE generation. On the
supply side interventions by the government, he pointed to mega solar parks set
up in the country, the 'Must Run' status of the RE projects, and the PLI
scheme.
On occasion, Mr Venu
Gopal Mothkoor, Senior Specialist, NITI Aayog, noted
that the decadal growth rate in primary energy consumption in India has been at
4 per cent as opposed to 1.3 per cent globally. He alluded to Prime Minister's
target of India becoming a developed country by 2047, which requires increasing
living standards, per capita income, manufacturing capacity and infrastructure,
leading to enhanced energy demand. "So based on our initial estimates, we
see that our final energy demand is going to be more than double what the
current levels are, and the installed capacity will be close to four to five
times", he said.
He added that India's growth would not
come at the cost of the environment. He said India is a role model in pursuing
a sustainable strategy.
Mr Mothkoor underscored
that India has already achieved a 28 per cent reduction in emission intensity
against a target of 45 per cent. "In a way, India is decoupling economic
growth from the emissions", he said.
Mr Somesh Kumar, Partner & Leader,
E&Y, said that policy and enabling environment are helping
consumers with various choices and move towards procuring RE power in a more
competitive and more accessible manner. However, Mr Kumar also pointed to
several barriers to the accelerated adoption of RE. These include energy
banking rules, which in some cases have a banking period of less than six
months, charges in the form of cross-subsidy surcharges, additional
charges, among
others.
Mr
Pinaki Bhattacharyya, Senior Member, FICCI Renewable Energy CEOs Council and MD
& CEO, Amp Energy India, noted that
the RE business is "very capital intensive", requiring "four
crores of capital for every megawatt of solar". As a result, both debt and
equity providers are essential. He added that the vital thing is to be
technology agnostic. As we move forward, we also see a transition from solar to
wind to hybrid and hybrid storage.
Dr Mukesh Kumar, Co-Chair, FICCI Steel
Technology Committee and Sr Advisor, JSP Group Advisory Services, also
spoke on occasion highlighting the transition that the steel industry is
undertaking towards net zero & decarbonization.