Govt promoting grid-linked renewable energy

Government of India has taken up programmes to promote grid interactive renewable energy covering solar, wind, bio-power and small hydro power across the country. As of mid 2018, 71.3 GW of renewable energy capacity has been installed in India. This is part of a target of setting up renewable capacity of 175 GW by 2022, comprising 100 GW solar, 60 GW wind, 10 GW biomass and 5 GW small hydro. Renewable power holds the key to supporting India’s fast-growing energy consumption. Meanwhile, rising demand has created strong competition in the renewable space, drawing favourable investments and innovation.

The details of major steps taken by the Government to attract investment in the renewable energy sector are as follows: –

1. Waiver of Inter State Transmission System (ISTS) charges and losses for inter-state sale of solar and wind power for projects to be commissioned up to March, 2022.
2. Permitting foreign direct investment (FDI) up to 100 per cent under the automatic route.
3. Notification of standard bidding guidelines to enable distribution licensee to procure solar and wind power at competitive rates in cost effective manner.
4. Declaration of trajectory for Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) up to the year 2022.
5. Implementation of Green Energy Corridor project to facilitate grid integration of large scale renewable energy capacity addition.

The details of generation of electricity through renewable sources of energy during the last three years are as follows: –

To make renewable energy more efficient, the Government has been developing storage technologies for managing variable generation from renewable energy sources, including solar power. In this regard, an expert committee has proposed draft National Energy Storage Mission that strives for leadership in the energy storage sector by encouraging manufacturing, deployment, innovation and cost reduction. As a result, Utility scale deployment for storage technology, excluding pumped hydro storage in 2017, was 620 MWh, while cumulative energy storage volume, including pumped hydro storage, was 15.3 GWh.

Australia, China, Japan, Germany, Korea and United States are the leading countries in deployment of energy storage technology. Through various bilateral engagements, India has been driving technological cooperation on energy storage. A specific proposal on designing research programme and collaboration projects has been proposed under the India-UK Energy for Growth Partnership.