Renewables Rule: China leads, India’s big International Solar Alliance plans

The International Energy Agency (IEA) – known for consistently downplaying the growth of renewables – finally gave it a fair forecast over the future of coal. The IEA revised renewables to grow by 43% globally by 2022, based on solar’s capacity addition outpacing coal’s expansion for the first time in 2016.

China will lead capacity addition with an estimated 340 GW of RE expected to come online by 2022 (nearly 40% of the global renewable share). Also, India’s RE capacity will more than double to 175 GW by 2022, and it is expected to overtake the installed capacity of the entire European Union during this period.

International Solar Alliance gets Euro 800 mn bank aid

The European Investment Bank (EIB) – the world’s largest international public bank – has signed a Euro 800 million pact with the International Solar Alliance (ISA) to aid India’s renewable installations. India aims to disburse low-interest funds to ISA member nations to adopt renewable solutions, such as solar water pumps.

Also, the French President will visit New Delhi on December 8th to formalize the ISA, which has so far been been ratified by 11 member nations.

Solar tariffs to ‘further fall to Rs. 1.50 per unit’

ISA’s interim Director General Upendra Tripathi expects solar tariffs to fall further to Rs 1.50 per unit. He also plans to scale-up solar applications in ISA’s member countries, train 100,000 solar mechanics and raise US$1 billion corpus with Fortune 2000 companies. ISA is also striving to form a US $300 billion Global Risk Mitigation Fund with the UN.

2018 ‘breakthrough’ year for Made-in-India modules

2018 is predicted to be a breakthrough year for ‘Made-in-India’ solar module exports to the US and European markets. And India’s national utility, NTPC, plans to facilitate 32GW of renewables by 2032. Meanwhile, an IEEFA study says renewables are disrupting energy markets worldwide, pushing down power prices. The combined losses of underperforming utilities in the previous decade have totalled US$185 billion.

India to be 40% renewable by 2030

India’s Power Minister has said that renewables will account for 40% of India’s energy supply by 2030, as opposed to 16% at present. He was speaking at the curtain raiser of the second edition of the Global Renewable Energy (RE) Investors Meet (RE-Invest2017), which will be hosted in India between 7th and 9th December to mobilise investments in EVs, batteries and green energy corridors. During the event the government will also review industry commitments made during RE-Invest 2015. The industry had committed to 293 GW of renewables in 2015, but so far only 39.3 GW has been commissioned.

About The Author

Editorial Team

A team of handpicked and dedicated writers committed to fact check each climate-related statement. Go to the roots and intent of each policy implemented, internationally and at home to help you understand climate better

See author's posts