India Has Big Plans for Renewable Energy: PM Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that there are huge renewable energy deployment plans for India for the next decade which are likely to generate business prospects of around $20 billion per year.

In his address after inaugurating the 3rd Global Renewable Energy Investment Meeting and Expo (RE-Invest 2020), through video conferencing, he invited investors, developers and businesses to join India's renewable energy journey.

He said that after the success of Performance Linked Incentives (PLI) in electronics manufacturing, the government has decided to give similar incentives to high efficiency solar modules, as per an official statement.

Stressing that ensuring 'ease of doing business' is their utmost priority and dedicated Project Development Cells have been established to facilitate investors, he said that in the last 6 years, India has travelled on an "unparalleled journey".

The Prime Minister noted that India's renewable power capacity is the fourth 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 per cent of its total capacity.

He said that India's annual renewable energy capacity addition has been exceeding that of coal based thermal power since 2017, and that in the last six years, India has increased installed renewable energy capacity by two and half times.

Modi was of the view that investing in renewable energy early on even when it was not affordable has helped in achieving scale, which is bringing costs down.