ADB highlights India’s potential for solar energy.

India has a huge potential for use of solar rooftop technologies, said a senior Asian Development Bank (ADB) official after signing a US$100 million loan in New Delhi on 31 May 2017.

“With a sharp drop in the price of solar panels, India has a huge potential to expand its use of solar rooftop technologies,” said Mr. Kenichi Yokoyama, ADB Country Director in India.

“The program will contribute to the government’s plans to increase solar power generation capacity, and also help India meet the carbon emission reduction target in line with its commitment at the recent global climate change agreement,” he said.

India’s solar rooftop market is expanding fast with an estimated total capacity potential of 124GW.

“The project is aligned with the goal set by Government of India to increase the country’s solar rooftop capacity by 40 GW by 2022, and would also contribute to Government’s efforts to promote solar energy solutions as affordable and sustainable energy sources,” said Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.

The entire Solar Rooftop Investment Program will cost US$1 billion, inclusive of ADB’s US $500 million funding, and the projects financed under the program will install solar rooftop system of around 1 GW capacity.

This will contribute to the climate change goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 11 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the typical 25-year lifetime of rooftop solar systems.

ADB signed the first tranche of US$100 million out of the agreed US$500 million for the Solar Rooftop Investment Program (SRIP).

The SRIP financing includes US$330 million from ADB’s ordinary capital resources and US$170 million from the multi donor Clean Technology Fund (CTF) administered by ADB. fii-news.com