Source: Thomson Reuters via Indian Economic Business News
The Indian government recently said it planned to double its renewable energy capacity by 2017. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that India would ramp up its use of wind, solar and biomass energies in the coming years. “It is proposed to double the renewable energy capacity in our country from 25,000 MW in 2012 to 55,000 megawatts by the year 2017,” he said at the Fourth Clean Energy Ministerial conference in New Delhi.”We have set ourselves a national target of increasing the efficiency of energy use to bring about a 20 to 25 per cent reduction in the energy intensity of our GDP by 2020.” Mr. Singh said that a low carbon strategy was necessary for sustainable growth. Mr. Singh, however, said these non- conventional sources of energy had reduced in price but were still higher than dirtier, more conventional sources of power, like coal. It will soon be the second-largest contributor to increasing global energy demands, accounting for 18 percent of the growth. Despite intense sunshine throughout the year, India has little solar capacity and much of its solar hardware is manufactured abroad. Mr. Singh said that that needs to change. “India is potentially a large market for production of such (solar) equipment and it is also a potentially competitive, attractive production base for supplying other countries,” he said at the conference.