India races to double clean energy by 2017

NEW DELHI: India is aiming to reach 53,000 megawatts of generated clean power over the next five years, more than doubling its capacity.

According to the Government of India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, India will generate an extra 29,800 megawatts by 2017. This will be added to the nation’s 23,128 megawatts of installed clean energy, doubling capacity to a total of 53,000 megawatts. 

This new clean energy capacity will be broken down into 15,000 megawatts of wind, 10,000 megawatts of solar, 2,700 megawatts of biomass energy and 2,100 megawatts of hydroelectric. This compares to India's current total grid-interactive generation capacity breakdown of: wind power at 17,353 megawatts; solar power at 941 megawatts; small hydro-power at 3,396 megawatts and bio-power at 3,225 megawatts.

The new targets come under India’s economic 12th Five Year Plan, which began this year. The state-wise targets are not fixed or proposed by the Union Government. 

The past three years have also seen significant growth in the clean energy sector, with a total capacity of over 10,400 megawatts added from various clean power generation projects between 2009 and 2012. This accelerated pace has largely come from increased foreign direct investment. It is estimated that investment reached Rs 5,826 crore (US$1245 million), across 319 renewable energy projects over the three year period. 

Earlier in the year, Bloomberg New Energy Finance revealed that clean energy investments in India reached $10.3 billion in 2011, which is 52% higher than the US$6.8 billion invested in 2010. This is the highest growth figure of any large economy in the world.

Aditi Dass, Director of Technologies India, The Climate Group, said: “The figures speak for themselves - it is evident that both the businesses and the government leaders in India already see the gigantic opportunity that exists in the Clean Revolution. The fact that the government is setting up such optimistic and competitive targets - and designing ways to achieve them - is itself a tremendous testimony to India’s low carbon growth story.”   

See what The Climate Group is doing in India.

Read more about The Clean Revolution and follow its global story live on Twitter using the #CleanRevolution hashtag.