Solar-led Renewables Sector Will Be A Top draw For Global Investors

India’s renewable energy market led by solar energy will likely be one of the top five sectors for the country that will attract global investments, Deepak Bagla, chief executive officer of Invest India told a conference organised by the International Solar Alliance (ISA) on Friday.

He said there was a high degree of innovation characterising the sector that was emerging from small towns and cities that are affordable, scalable and are relevant not only for the country but also for the world. “There are some amazing new technologies that are being brought out.”

Bagla said that the covid-19 pandemic was reordering the energy business so that the demand was no longer going to be concentrated in certain large cities and would instead increasingly be spread out as businesses catch up to the concept of work from home.

Such a transition is bound to open up new opportunities for solar powered renewable energy, he added.

In the last four years, India’s program to build up its renewable energy has resulted in the segment being able to contribute to about a quarter of the total requirement in terms of capacity added.

T.N Vijay Bhaskar, chief secretary of Karnataka government, said that his state was planning to shift their reliance on fossil fuels completely and in about five years would use them only as a contingency measure.

The southern Indian state, which boasts of the world’s largest solar park, currently meets around half of its energy requirement from renewable sources.

The state is planning to build two more solar parks equal in size to the world’s largest solar park, he said.

The state is planning to supplement its solar capacity through floating solar plants as well as other innovative technology.

Sanjay Dubey, principal secretary in the state government of Madhya Pradesh, said  that they were aiming to have as much as 40% of their energy generation from renewable sources by 2027. That will also entail investment in a 750 MW solar project in the state.

He said the state’s solar generation was helping it fulfill not only the state’s requirement, but was also able to provide electricity to Delhi’s metro services. The state has been able to distribute as many as 18,000 solar pumps to farmers under the Prime Minister’s Kusum program.

The program aims to wean off farmers from their reliance on thermal energy sources for pumping water into their fields. It also aims to provide them with a secondary income by being able to sell surplus power back to electricity grids.