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Commercial & Industrial Consumers are our Partners in Transition towards Net Zero & Decarbonization: Lalit Bohra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy

Mar 03, 2023

India is decoupling economic growth from emissions: Venu Gopal Mothkoor, Senior Specialist, NITI Aayog.  

NEW DELHI. 03 MARCH 2023: Addressing FICCI's Seminar on Renewable Energy (RE) Transition for Commercial and Industrial Consumers, Mr Lalit Bohra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India said the PLI scheme of Rs 24,000 crores would ensure upward integration from polysilicon to modules and will help India in becoming a net exporter of modules.   

He said, "this Rs 24,000 crore PLI scheme is going to be a game changer, and will boost solar module capacity in India".  

Mr Bohra also elucidated several demand-side and supply-side interventions by the government. These include renewable power obligations on the discoms to ensure that discoms have a certain percentage of their electricity from the renewable source. Besides, he underlined the waiver of the interstate transmission service charges to allow developers to establish plants in any part of the country and financial support for the residential rooftop scheme for the decentralized RE generation. On the supply side interventions by the government, he pointed to mega solar parks set up in the country, the 'Must Run' status of the RE projects, and the PLI scheme.  

On occasion, Mr Venu Gopal MothkoorSenior Specialist, NITI Aayog, noted that the decadal growth rate in primary energy consumption in India has been at 4 per cent as opposed to 1.3 per cent globally. He alluded to Prime Minister's target of India becoming a developed country by 2047, which requires increasing living standards, per capita income, manufacturing capacity and infrastructure, leading to enhanced energy demand. "So based on our initial estimates, we see that our final energy demand is going to be more than double what the current levels are, and the installed capacity will be close to four to five times", he said.   

He added that India's growth would not come at the cost of the environment. He said India is a role model in pursuing a sustainable strategy.  

Mr Mothkoor underscored that India has already achieved a 28 per cent reduction in emission intensity against a target of 45 per cent. "In a way, India is decoupling economic growth from the emissions", he said.  

Mr Somesh Kumar, Partner & Leader, E&Y, said that policy and enabling environment are helping consumers with various choices and move towards procuring RE power in a more competitive and more accessible manner. However, Mr Kumar also pointed to several barriers to the accelerated adoption of RE. These include energy banking rules, which in some cases have a banking period of less than six months, charges in the form of cross-subsidy surcharges, additional charges,  among others. 

Mr Pinaki Bhattacharyya, Senior Member, FICCI Renewable Energy CEOs Council and MD & CEO, Amp Energy India, noted that the RE business is "very capital intensive", requiring "four crores of capital for every megawatt of solar". As a result, both debt and equity providers are essential. He added that the vital thing is to be technology agnostic. As we move forward, we also see a transition from solar to wind to hybrid and hybrid storage.   

Dr Mukesh Kumar, Co-Chair, FICCI Steel Technology Committee and Sr Advisor, JSP Group Advisory Services, also spoke on occasion highlighting the transition that the steel industry is undertaking towards net zero & decarbonization.  

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