Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won a support from U.S. President Barack Obama for an ambitious plan to increase the South Asian nation’s use of renewable energy.
Obama gave his commitment to help with financial support during his current visit to India. India needs an investment of US$200 billion to increase its clean energy goals, which are mostly cantered on wind and solar energy. It intends to increase its installed solar capacity to 100 gigawatts, and wind capacity to 60 GW by 2022.
However, Modi has made it clear that whilst India is committed to accelerating the use of clean energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, will need U.S. support to meet that target.
India is the 7th largest clean energy investor in the world, according to research agency Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Investments in that sector totalled almost US$8 billion in 2014. Investment this year is expected to top US$10 billion.
BNEF analysis shows that India has one of the lowest levelised costs of renewable energy generation in the world. With the rising cost competitiveness of renewables and increasing interest in clean energy consumption by large commercial and industrial consumers, project installations are also expected to rise this year. BNEF expects 2,500 megawatts of new solar capacity in 2015 – a 1.5 times increase over last year. Wind installations are estimated to reach 2,800MW, up 22% from 2014.