India to increase renewable energy capacity to 55,000MW by 2017

The federal government of India is outlining plans to increase the renewable energy capacity of the country by twofold to 55000MW by 2017.

During the inauguration of Clean Energy Ministerial conference, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated that the government is set to improve its energy usage efficiency.

"It is proposed to double the renewable energy capacity in our country from 25000 MW in 2012 to 55000 MW by the year 2017," said Singh.

During the 12th Five Year Plan, the government is planning a low carbon strategy to boost the sustainable growth, by exploring non-conventional energy sources such as solar, wind power and energy from biomass.

"We have set ourselves a national target of increasing the efficiency of energy use to bring about a 20 to 25 per cent reduction in the energy intensity of our GDP by 2020," revealed Singh.

The PM, however, raised concerns over the expensive production costs for renewable energy, citing it as a constraint to hold back the development of the sector.

"The cost of solar energy for example has nearly halved over the last two years, though it remains higher than the cost of fossil fuel based electricity.

"If the cost imposed by carbon emissions is taken into account, then solar energy is more cost effective, but it is still more expensive," noted Singh.

Meanwhile, Singh suggested the need for countries to support and aid each other, adding that developing countries constitute 82% of the world’s population but use 55% of the available global supply of energy.

"They must aim at faster growth of their GDP to improve the living standards of their populations and this will entail an expanded demand for energy. If they follow the industrialised countries in meeting their energy requirements through fossil fuel based energy, we know that the impact on the global climate would be simply unsustainable," Singh suggested.

The government has recently launched a Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission to reach 22,000MW of solar capacity by 2022 including both solar photovoltaic and solar thermal.