On October 6, India’s power minister Raj Kumar Singh announced that the country would replace retiring coal-fired power plants with renewable power generation capacity to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.
Following China, India is the world’s second-largest coal consumer and the third-largest producer of greenhouse gases. Coal-fired plants are responsible for more than 50% of its nearly 373-gigawatt (GW) power generating capacity.
Singh explained:
Many of those plants are getting retired. Some plants are already retired, and about 29 more plants are going to retire, and all that space will be occupied by renewable energy.
India depends on inexpensive imports, particularly from China, to meet the bulk of its demand for solar modules and cells. According to the minister, India’s yearly installed and functional manufacturing capacity of solar cells is roughly 2.5 GW, while solar modules are around 10 GW. “We plan to raise this capacity to around 25 GW per annum for solar cells and modules in another two years’ time,” Singh added.
To save the local industry from cheaper imports, India will take on three significant moves:
- It will extend Safeguard Duty on imports of solar modules and cells by another year.
- Make an import tax on solar modules and cells.
- Increase the import duty level on PV inverters, which are electrical converters connected to solar panels to turn the direct-current power into usable electricity.
In collaboration with private companies, India wants to build coastal renewable energy equipment manufacturing hubs, with the hope of becoming self-reliant to boost its wilting economy.
India aims for 175GW of renewable power capacity by 2022, with the ultimate goal of meeting 40% of its energy needs from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
