Final Rules For Indian Carbon Credit Market Within 15 Days: Govt

Higher officials from the Ministry of Power today claimed that the final rules to govern the Indian Carbon Credit Market are expected to be out in the next 15 days. The officials said that after exhaustive consultations with the stakeholders, the ministry is set to come out with the final rules.

It comes after the ministry came out with a draft set of rules on the issue earlier. The Indian Parliament last year passed with Energy Conservation Bill, which paved the way for creating a carbon credit market for the country. The legislation batted for the creation of its indegenous local carbon credit market. 

“Some days back, we had issued the draft rules for the carbon credit market. After that, we held consultations with different stakeholders. We are all set to come out with the final version of the rules in the next 7-15 days,” Union Power Secretary Alok Kumar said. 

The secretary also said that the ministry had been planning to launch a separate Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) for Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) to boost off-grid solar energy systems deployment under PM-KUSUM and related government schemes. 

The details were shared today in a press conference by Union Power Minister RK Singh and the secretaries of the Ministry of Power and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. During the press conference, Singh talked about his ministry’s major achievements during the last nine years. 

Singh said that with more proactive measures and reforms brought by the government, Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) losses of power distribution companies dwindled since 2013. 

“We have reduced the AT&C losses from 22 percent to 16 percent. We are also doing away with the pendency of power bills from government departments. Most of them are now moving towards pre-paid meters,” the minister told reporters. He also added that the country now has a total of 183 Gigawatt (GW) of installed renewable energy capacity, whereas green energy projects worth 124 GW are in different stages of development. 

He also talked about the development of Green Hydrogen in India. He said that different Green Hydrogen Projects with a total capacity of 3.5 million tonnes had been announced in India. He also claimed that India would become a key destination for the production of the new green energy source. 

“We are going to be the leaders in Green Hydrogen/ Many countries are going for low-carbon technologies, but we are focussing on no-carbon technologies like Green Hydrogen because we have the advantage of the vast presence of renewable energy. We have the land and the sun. So our cost of production of Green Hydrogen would be one of the lowest in the country,” he said.