Govt to handhold investors in renewable energy
Expressions of interest (EoIs) for 20 GW of the module and cell manufacturing have been issued as India continues to progress on as the fastest-growing renewable energy capacity building.
Sharing information on the issued EoIs, Minister of State for Power and New and Renewable Energy, R. K. Singh said, “India will continue to be the fastest and largest-growing market for investment in renewables.”
“India has a plan not only for grid-connected solar and renewables but also an ambitious vision for mobility, followed by electricity-based cooking,” he told a symposium “India PV Edge-2020” by NITI Aayog, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Invest India on 7 Oct 2020.
Invest India MD and CEO Deepak Bagla underlined the roles of special cells set up by the Government to handhold investors through their investment journey.
“One of the roles of these cells is to facilitate investments and remove roadblocks, if any. The second is to create ready, on-the-shelf projects. Third, is to create plug-and-play infrastructure facilities for investors,” Bagla said.
“We are convinced that PV technology improvements will exceed general market expectations and will be the key anchor towards reducing solar deployment costs,” said NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
India, with its huge market and relevant manufacturing advantages, can be a giga-scale manufacturing destination for cutting-edge PV technologies across the entire value chain.
“It is the perfect time under the current leadership to bring together global technology providers, equipment makers, and champion PV companies to present their technologies to the Indian industry,” said Kant.
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Secretary Indu Shekhar Chaturvedi expects 30 GW of solar capacity to be added every year over the next few years.
“Boosting domestic manufacturing would be crucial to reduce our import dependence and the government is looking at implementing various supply and demand-side interventions for the manufacturing of solar cells, wafers and ingots.
“It is important to keep in view the critical role and changes in technology can possibly play in making solar power firmer and cheaper,” said Chaturvedi.
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Joint Secretary Amitesh Kumar Sinha assured investors of all possible support from the ministry and emphasized the suitability and openness of the Indian market for investment.
He highlighted that “to promote solar PV manufacturing, schemes such as production-linked incentives to scale cutting-edge solar PV tech-based new manufacturing units and interest subvention scheme to offset the higher lending cost in India, are under active consideration by the government”.
During the ‘Investment Conclave’ session, officials from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh state governments highlighted what makes India’s solar manufacturing sector attractive to global institutional investors.
Executives from international finance corporations, major developers and Coal India Limited also spoke at the symposium on how to catalyse investment momentum in breakthrough PV technologies.
India’s Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement in 2015 call for extraordinary vision, leadership, compassion, and wisdom to combat climate change.
India PV Edge-2020 has served as a small step towards that ambition by bringing together cutting-edge R&D companies, RE developers, policymakers and investors under one platform.
It will go a long way in making India the giga-scale manufacturing destination for breakthrough PV technologies, said the organizers.
Around 60 prominent Indian and global CEOs attended the event, along with a number of global PV manufacturers, developers, investors, think tanks and top policymakers. An investor’s roundtable was also organized after the pitching sessions to deliberate on ways to mobilize affordable capital into solar manufacturing.
The event discussed the potential of making India a global hub for solar PV manufacturing with breakthrough technologies and providing an ecosystem for setting up giga-scale factories by local and global firms.
The participating companies also had the opportunity to interact with Indian policymakers involved in developing manufacturing schemes.
India now has the third-largest solar installed capacity in the world. It is one of the few countries on track to meet its three key NDC targets – achieve 40% non-fossil-fuel-based installed power capacity, reduce 33%–35% emissions, and create a carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide – by 2030. India is likely to achieve these goals much earlier.
Solar deployment has been the flagship green growth story of the last decade and will be instrumental in building a climate-resilient world. Solar PV manufacturing is one of the strategic champion sectors announced by the government as part of Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
The symposium’s pitching sessions highlighted that giga-scale solar manufacturing stands on three pillars:
- disruptive PV chemistries;
- manufacturing by custom-engineered advanced production equipment;
- (iii) utilization of innovative BoM components such as special glasses and coatings.
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