The Government of India has up-scaled the target of renewable energy capacity to 175 GW by the year 2022.
The new target includes 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from bio-power and 5 GW from small hydro-power.
Stepping up capacity target under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) by five times now India is aiming to generate reaching 100,000 MW solar power by 2022.
The target will principally comprise of 40 GW Rooftop and 60 GW through Large and Medium Scale Grid Connected Solar Power Projects.
With this ambitious target, India will become one of the largest Green Energy producers in the world, surpassing several developed countries, a statement from the Government said.
The total investment in setting up 100 GW will be around Rs. 600,000 crore.
India has added a total of 2,311.88 MW of grid-connected power generation capacity from renewable energy sources like solar and wind this fiscal in the country.
The government has set a target of 4,460 MW of power generation capacity addition this fiscal from renewable energy sources, including solar, wind and small-hydro.
During the first seven months of the fiscal, 827.22 MW of solar power generation capacity was added, taking the cumulative electricity generation capacity from the source to 4,579.24 MW. The Centre is aiming to add 1,400 MW solar power generation capacity during this fiscal.
Similarly, 1,234.11 MW wind power generation capacity was added during the period, taking cumulative electricity generation capacity from this renewable source to 24,677.72 MW. The government has set a target of adding 2,400 MW of wind power generation capacity in 2015-16.
Under the small-hydro category, 106.55 MW generation capacity was added till October, taking the total generation capacity in this segment to 4161.90 MW. The Centre has set a target of adding 250 MW of small-hydro power generation capacity this fiscal.
In the bio-power segment, 132 MW of generation capacity was added till October end this fiscal, taking the total capacity to 4550.55 MW in this segment. The government has set a target of adding 400 MW capacity from these sources.
In waste-to-power segment, 12 MW capacity has been created till October compared to a target of 10 MW for the entire 2015-16. Now, India has 127.08 MW of power generation capacity under this category.
The country’s total grid-connected power generation capacity from all the above mentioned renewable sources was 38,096.49 MW at the end of October.
Rajani Baburajan