New market policies on the anvil

India’s renewable energy industry has recorded exponential expansion with almost 10,000 firms operating in the ecosystem as a result of the market being conducive to business and investments.

This scope of the Indian renewables market as given by Rahul Munjal, managing director of Hero Futures Energy at a panel discussion on ‘Innovative Financing and Market Evolution to achieve 175 GW renewables by 2022’.

The discussions were held on 16 Nov 2017 at the India Pavilion at Conference of Parties (CoP) 23, Bonn, Germany. It was organized by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Echoing a similar thought and projecting high optimism, Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, MD, CLP India said that renewables are becoming more an imperative for economies like India which have to reach power to large sections of the people.

Dr. P.C. Maithani, Adviser, MNRE said that policies are being drafted on a continuous basis to address challenges as the market evolves.

The markets have matured and one indicator of that is seen in how the bond markets have progressed, said K.S. Popli, chairman and managing director of Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA) said that

Dr. Ajay Mathur, Director General of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) stressed upon the need to push for higher research in storage technology which could compliment the infirm renewable power. There is an imminent need to look at bringing down storage costs, he added.

Prices of solar and wind have dramatically reduced to 3-4 cents per Kwh as against 9-12 per unit in 2013, even as capacities have scaled up to 47.5 GW.

Policymakers and industry are now confident of accelerating this growth trajectory to provide electricity, along with storage, at an estimated Rs 5 per unit before 2025, according to the panel. fii-news.com