STATUS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY IN INDIA

Government of India has set the target to expand India’s renewable energy installed capacity to 500 GW by 2030.
India is also targeting to reduce India’s total projected carbon emission by 1 billion tonnes by 2030, reduce the carbon intensity of the nation’s economy by less than 45% by the end of the decade, achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070.

Present Status of Renewable Energy in India

The total installed capacity for renewable energy in India is 151.4 GW.

The following is the breakup of total installed capacity for Renewables:

Present Solar Power capacity:

45 solar parks of aggregate capacity 37 GW have been approved in India.
Solar Parks in Pavagada (2 GW), Kurnool (1 GW) and Bhadla-II (648 MW) are included in the top 5 operational solar parks of 7 GW capacity in the country.
The world’s largest renewable energy park of 30 GW capacity solar-wind hybrid project is under installation in Gujarat.

Challenges

India doesn’t have enough module and PV cell manufacturing capacity.
The current solar module manufacturing capacity is limited to 15 GW per year, whereas the domestic production is around 3.5 GW only.
Further, out of the 15 GW of module manufacturing capacity, only 3-4 GW of modules are technologically competitive and worthy of deployment in grid-based projects.
The silicon wafer, the most expensive raw material, is not manufactured in India.
It currently imports 100% silicon wafers and around 80% cells.
Further, other key raw materials, such as silver and aluminum metal pastes for making electrical contacts, are also almost 100% imported.

Government Initiatives

The Scheme has provisions for supporting the setting up of integrated manufacturing units of high-efficiency solar PV modules by providing Production Linked Incentive (PLI) on sales of such solar PV modules.
Under some of the current schemes of the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE), namely Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU) Scheme Phase-II, PM-KUSUM, and Grid-connected Rooftop Solar Programme Phase-II, wherein government subsidy is given, it has been mandated to source solar PV cells and modules from domestic sources.
Further, the government made it mandatory to procure modules only from an Approved List of Manufacturers (ALMM) for projects that are connected to state/ central government grids.
Imposition of Basic Customs Duty on import of solar PV cells & modules:
The Government has announced the imposition of Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on the import of solar PV cells and modules.
Further, it has imposed a 40% duty on the import of modules and a 25% duty on the import of cells.
Basic custom duty is the duty imposed on the value of the goods at a specific rate.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

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