Prime Minister Modi said that India will offer production-linked incentives for high-efficiency solar modules to boost the generation of electricity from renewable sources. He said that the renewable energy sector has the potential to generate an annual business of $20 billion, when speaking at the RE-Invest 2020 conference. PM Modi also invited global investors to join India’s renewable energy journey.

“There are huge renewable energy deployment plans for the next decade,” he said adding that the industry has the potential to generate business prospects of the order of nearly $20 billion per year. “Today, India’s renewable power capacity is the fourth largest in the world. It is growing at the fastest speed among all major countries,” PM Modi added.

The current renewable energy capacity, combining wind, solar and biomass, stands at 136 Gw, which is expected to rise to 220 Gw by 2022, he said also adding that the present renewable energy capacity is about 36 capacity is about 36 percent of the country’s total electricity generating capacity.

“In the past six years, we increased our installed renewable energy capacity by two and a half times. Our annual renewable energy capacity addition has been exceeding that of coal-based thermal power since 2017,”

The current renewable energy capacity, combining wind, solar and biomass, stands at 136 Gw, which is expected to rise to 220 Gw by 2022

PM Modi said.

He said that after the success of Production Linked Incentives (PLI) for electronics manufacturing, the government has decided to give similar incentives to high-efficiency solar modules. PM Modi also stressed that ensuring ease of doing business is the government’s top priority for which dedicated project development cells have been established to facilitate investors.

He also emphasized that India is showing the world that sound environmental policies can also be sound economics.

“We have ensured energy efficiency is not limited to one ministry or department, instead it has been made a target for the entire government. All our policies have a consideration of achieving energy efficiency,” PM Modi emphasized.

Power Minister R K Singh said that India has transformed from being energy deficit to being energy surplus, connected the entire country with one grid. It also connected nearly 28 million households in 18 months which is the largest programme in the whole world, he said.

Power Minister further said that India currently has 38.1 percent installed capacity from non-fossil fuel sources, and plans to achieve 64 percent power generation capacity from renewable sources, a 24 percent higher than India’s commitment under Paris Agreement.