OVERVIEW-INDIA'S RENEWABLE ENERGY

Renewable energy has started playing an increasingly important role for augmentation of grid power,

providing energy access, reducing consumption of fossil fuels and helping India pursue its low carbon

development path. Ahead of COP 21, India submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution

(INDC) to the UNFCCC, outlining the country’s post-2020 climate actions. India’s INDC builds on its

goal of installing 175 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power capacity by 2022. India has set a target to

increase the country’s share of non-fossil-based installed electric capacity to 40 percent by 2030. The

INDC also commits to reduce India’s GHG emissions intensity per unit GDP by 33 to 35 percent below

2005 levels by 2030, and to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide

through additional tree cover.

MISSION

Launched in January 2010, the National Solar Mission (NSM) was the first mission to be operationalized under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). Using a three-phase approach, the mission’s objective is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for solar technology diffusion across the country as quickly as possible. The initial target of the mission of installing 20 GW grid-connected solar power plants by the year 2022 was enhanced to 100 GW to be achieved by the same target year.

In 2015, the Government of India announced a target for 175 GW cumulative renewable power installed capacity by the year 2022. A capacity of 85.90 GW has been set up by December 2019 constituting more than 23 percent of the total installed capacity. India has 4th and 5th global positions in the wind and solar power deployment respectively. Since 2013-14 till December 2019, the renewable power deployment has more than doubled. Annually more than 10 million man-days employment is being created in the sector. Solar power capacity has increased by more than 14 times in the last five years from 2630 MW to 37505 MW in December 2019.

A range of policy instruments has been adopted to implement this mission. The revised tariff policy requires all States to reach eight percent solar RPO by the year 2022. The first phase of the mission opted for a reverse bidding mechanism; reverse bids (discounts) on benchmark tariffs set by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) were invited from prospective project developers. Solar water heaters and rooftop systems have been promoted in certain government, commercial and residential areas through regulatory intervention such as mandates under building by-laws and its incorporation in the National Building Code. Off-grid and rooftop solar applications have been promoted through the provision of subsidies from the central government. Research and development is also being encouraged through approvals of R&D projects and the establishment of Centres of Excellence by the Ministry. These measures led to a decline in the purchase prices of solar power in India much more than expectations. Overall, NSM is proceeding well according to schedule.

With an aim to enhance farmers’ energy independence, income and de-dieselise the farm sector, the Government had announced a new scheme Pradhan Mantri – Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthan Mahaabhiyan (PM-KUSUM).

R&D is a bedrock for sustaining the growth of any sector. MNRE has been extremely focussed on giving impetus to Renewable Energy R&D through various initiatives.

Research and Development efforts in renewable energy continued to make advances in making such technologies affordable and sturdy with assured quality. With this in mind, the government has notified the National Laboratory Policy on testing, standardization, and certification, with six laboratories being recognized by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Besides, Quality Control Order titled Solar Photovoltaics, The Secretary, MNRE, Shri Anand Kumar chairing ‘Chintan Baithak’ with the stakeholders of Renewable Energy Sector, in New Delhi on May 07, 2019. 7 Systems, Devices, and Components Goods (Requirement for Compulsory Registration) Order 2017 for Solar PV systems and components under the BIS Act. New initiatives were also taken up for Quality Control Orders on Solar Thermal Collectors and Grid Tied Inverters.

ACHIEVEMENTS

i.SECI has awarded 1440 MW capacity after e-reverse auction under Solar – Wind Hybrid policy;

ii. CPSU Scheme Phase II launched with VGF funding with 922 MW awarded under Tranche I and 1104 MW awarded under Tranche II;

iii. Phase II of Grid Connected Solar Rooftop Programme launched in February 2019 with the target of 40000 MW capacity by the year 2022

iv. Tender invited for setting up Solar PV manufacturing capacities linked with assured off-take of 10000 MW; The Minister of State for Power, New & Renewable Energy (Independent Charge) and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Shri Raj Kumar Singh addressing at the inauguration of the Elecrama 2020, at India Expo Mart, in Greater Noida on January 18, 2020. 8

v. Revised Tariff Policy mandating Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) and Renewable Generation Obligation (RGO);

vi. Waiver of Inter-State Transmission charges for Solar and Wind Energy;

vii. RPO trajectory for 2022 being enforced through CERC and SERC interventions;

viii. Transparent bidding process continued – which has led to a significant reduction in per-unit cost of solar and wind power;

ix. Three solar parks Kurnool (1000 MW) in Andhra Pradesh and Bhadla-II (680 MW) in Rajasthan and Pavagada (2000 MW) in Karnataka are fully operational;

x. More than 74 lakh solar lanterns and study lamps; more than 17 lakh home lights have been distributed under the Off-Grid and Decentralised Solar Programme. Besides, more than 6.80 lakh street lights have been set up in the villages of India. More than 2.46 lakh Solar PV Pumps have been installed in the rural areas for irrigation and drinking water purposes.

xi. The Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) Scheme has been launched in March 2019 consisting of three components namely Component-A: Setting up of 10,000 MW of Decentralized Grid Connected Solar or other Renewable Energy Power Plants on barren / fallow land; Component-B: Installation of 17.50 Lakh stand-alone solar agriculture pumps; and Component-C: Solarisation of 10 Lakh Grid Connected Agriculture Pumps.

xii. The current annual manufacturing capacity of wind turbines in the country is about 10,000 MW; xiii. To enable Discoms of the non-windy States to fulfill their non-solar Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO), through the purchase of wind power at a tariff determined by a transparent bidding process, MNRE through SECI has auctioned wind power capacity in 8 tranches. Further, NTPC and the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have also auctioned wind power capacities. The Cumulative commissioned capacity until 31/12/19 stands at 37.505 GW. Capacity under implementation is 9.355 GW.

xiv. An online portal has been developed and launched in December 2019 by Ministry for issuing concessional custom duty exemption certificates (CCDC) to the manufacturers of wind operated electricity generators as per the Ministry of Finance tariff notification.

xv. India’s offshore wind potential has been recognized under the National Offshore Wind Policy under which NIWE has been authorized to allocate offshore wind blocks to developers based on open international competitive bidding. To formulate the required framework for regulating the lease of offshore areas within the EEZ of India for offshore wind energy development, Ministry is framing lease rules under the ‘Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone, and Other Maritime Zones Act, 1976’. The draft offshore wind energy lease rules have already been circulated to stakeholders Ministries and Departments and their comments have been received.

xvi. 12 biogas based projects have been commissioned with a power generation capacity of 212 kW and corresponding biogas generation capacity of 1805 m3 per day. With this, the cumulative total of 316 biogas based projects with a total power generation capacity of 7.166 MW with a cumulative total biogas generation of 69,500 m3 per day has been set up in the country, up to 31.12.2019.

xvii. Under the Green Energy Corridor project, approx. Rs.2000 crore has been disbursed to the States from the Government of India share to cover projects awarded under it.

xviii. On 22 May 2018, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy constituted RPO Compliance Cell to coordinate with States, SERCs and CERC on matters relating to RPO Compliance. A centralized online platform has been developed to monitor RPO compliance status for all states, enabling States to feed information on RPO compliance in the portal by Obligated Entities in respective States, and collation of data at the national level.

xix. Around 60.61 lakh solar study lamps were distributed to the students under 70 lakh solar study lamp scheme in the States of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. Under the Scheme, over 7436 nos. of women were trained as solar lighting technicians, 1769 nos. of repair and maintenance centers were established, around 1896 people were trained in entrepreneurship development and 832 nos. of solar shops have been opened.

xx. Financing scheme developed jointly with IREDA and MNRE, to provide financial support to Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) projects by bundling the MNRE’s subsidy and a soft loan from IREDA, thereby providing upfront access to 75% of CST project cost;

xxi. NIWE has created an operational forecast system with simulation tools, to predict the wind power up to 7 days ahead. To improve the forecasting model, NIWE has signed MoU with ISRO SAC for Development of Wind and Solar Power Forecasting using High-Resolution Numerical Model. Currently, NIWE has developed the indigenous Intra-day forecasting model and also carrying out various activities to improve/fine-tune the day ahead model from the inputs received during the delivery of pilot operational forecasts to RE SLDCs.

xxii. NIWE has signed MoUs with SLDC’s of Tamilnadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra & SRLDC for providing wind/solar power forecasting services. The Pilot Wind/Solar power forecasting services have been initiated for Tamilnadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and SRLDC (NP Kunta Solar Park & Chandragiri wind farm).

xxiii. Under the Suryamitra program, Suryamitra Trainings are being organized through 223 training centers/organizations in different states across the country under the coordination by the National Institute of Solar Energy since March 2018. During the current year, i.e. 2019-20, 20,700 youth are targeted to be trained as Suryamitras in 690 batches across the country. Total 40,441 no. of Suryamitras have been trained cumulatively up to 31st December 2019.

Sources

https://mnre.gov.in

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