New Delhi: India is confident of achieving its target of 500 GW non-fossil energy generation by 2030, Union minister of new and renewable energy Prahlad Joshi said on Wednesday. He was speaking at the curtain raiser of the eighth assembly of the International Solar Alliance.
In response to a question on what would be India’s update on its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), Joshi said that the country has already achieved one of its targets for the 2030 period – to attain about 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources.
“Our goal is to achieve 500 GW by 2030. We are on track. We have 162 GW in the pipeline presently. I am confident that we will achieve that goal,” he said.
Santosh Kumar Sarangi, secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), said that a discussion among stakeholders on whether India can increase its installed capacity from non-fossil sources is underway.
“Our NDC has two parts – to reduce emissions intensity and to increase capacity from non-fossil sources to 50% by 2030. The second one has been achieved. The emission intensity target remains as is till 2030. There is a discussion among stakeholders on capacity target from non-fossil sources. A call has to be taken on that,” he explained.
India’s three quantitative NDCs for the 2030 period include: to reduce emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% by 2030, from 2005 levels; to achieve about 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy sources by 2030, with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international finance including from the Green Climate Fund (GCF); and to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
Hindustan Times reported on Wednesday that India has finalised its first national adaptation plan, which is likely to be unveiled ahead of or at the UN Climate Meeting (COP30) in Belem, Brazil. The national adaptation plan and an update to India’s NDC for the 2035 period are currently under review and expected to be taken up for cabinet approval very soon, those aware of the matter said.
“The most important thing India needs to do by COP30 is communicate its adaptation strategy and NDC 3.0. In the leadership vacuum created by the USA’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, all countries have to come together to uphold multilateralism. Enhanced ambition in India’s NDC is critical to create positive momentum and deliver on the COP30 action agenda,” senior fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) Vaibhav Chaturvedi said.
An observer said the Brazil COP holds immense importance in view of South-South solidarity and hence it is also an important platform for India. This is especially in view of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, backtracking on several key climate policies, and the ongoing tariff negotiations with several countries.
Further, MNRE officials said the US tariff negotiations did not impact India’s solar module sector. “Our solar module exports are not very huge. Our domestic consumption of modules has been very high because of utility-scale solar projects that we have been doing. For schemes like PM Kusum, PM Surya Ghar our domestic demand has been very high,” Sarangi said.
“As far as promoting solar sales is concerned, we have a production-linked incentive scheme through which we are supporting domestic solar manufacturing and until now we have 100 GW of domestic solar module manufacturing and 27 GW of cell manufacturing,” he added.
Diversifying solar supply chains will be key as China continues to be the dominant player, holding a substantial majority across all stages of solar panel production, the officials said.
“The private sector including India, EU, and others must have wider supply chain diversification in the interest of competitiveness,” director general of International Solar Alliance (ISA) Ashish Khanna said.
Khanna said that ISA has an association with member and non-member countries. “Any Chinese company can join our platform. We have shared our priorities with the Chinese embassy. The onus is on the Chinese government to take a call on ISA membership,” he added.
