India plans to increase renewable energy from six to 15% of total energy supply in the next five years, Power Minister Piyush Goyal told a conference in New Delhi this week.
“While coal will continue to dominate our energy mix for some time, we are taking steps to protect the environment,” he said. “Neither India nor the world has the luxury of time when it comes to protection of the environment.”
The Indian government is trying to attract $100 billion in clean energy investment over the next four years, Bloomberg reports. “At present, coal generates 60% electricity in a nation that suffers from chronic blackouts.”
But on The Energy Collective earlier this month, Greentech Media’s Katherine Tweed said the country will need $250 billion over five years to provide power to a population of more than one billion.
“India is having difficulty meeting its current power demands, and it will be a stretch to supply reliable electricity to a power-hungry nation that is slated to double its energy consumption by 2019,” she wrote. “Nearly 40% of India’s 1.2 billion residents do not have access to reliable electricity, a gap that President Modi has pledged to eliminate in the coming five years.”
