PM Modi Strikes Optimistic Note On Future of Renewables In India At 3rd RE-invest

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the 3rd Global Renewable Energy Investment Meeting and Expo (RE-Invest 2020) through video conferencing. The event is being held virtually this year. The theme for RE-Invest 2020 is ‘Innovations for Sustainable Energy Transition’, and it is organized by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

During the inaugural session the Prime Minister expressed happiness in the progress of renewable energy sector, especially the mindset change from MW to GW in spirit and reality on the ground. He pointed out that India’s generation capacity and network is being expanded to ensure every citizen of India has access to electricity. He mentioned that India’s renewable power capacity is the 4th largest in the world and is growing at the fastest speed among all major countries. The renewable energy capacity in India is currently 136 Giga Watts, which is about 36% of total country capacity.

He highlighted that in the last 6 years, India has increased installed renewable energy capacity by two and half times, emphasising that investing in RE when it wasn’t cheap has made it possible to reduce the prices further.

The Prime Minister said that after the success of Performance Linked Incentives (PLI) in electronics manufacturing, now they have decided to give similar incentives to high efficiency solar modules. He stressed that ensuring “Ease of doing business” is the utmost priority and dedicated Project Development Cells have been established to facilitate investors.

He announced that there are huge renewable energy deployment plans for the next decade and are likely to generate business prospects of the order of around $ 20 billion per year. He invited investors, developers and businesses to join India’s renewable energy journey.

The inaugural session was coordinated by Mr R K Singh, Minister of Power and was attended by Prime Minister of Israel Mr H.E. Benjamin Netanyahu; Minister of Climate and Energy, Denmark Mr Dan Jørgensen; Secretary of State and Energy UK Mr Alok Sharma. A special video message from  Mr H.E. Mark Rutte, PM of the Netherlands was also streamed.

During the special address Mr Dan emphasized on moving towards Green transition for combating climate change issues, RE is also a key to reach the proposed ideas in Paris agreement. He also emphasized on Denmark-India partnership in green energy which will help not only in dealing with climate change issues but also help in generating jobs and so in increasing the economy.