This report examines the challenge of managing India’s renewable energy growth with increased flexibility in the system. This component specifically tries to address the dual issue of flexibility and stranded assets and looks at the plausibility of using existing coal-based power plants as flexibility reserves.
India’s economy is growing rapidly, and with it, so is energy demand. The IEA-IEO (2015) estimates that India’s aggregate energy consumption will more than double by 2040. The Government of India plans to install 175 GW of renewable energy projects by 2022 and 275 GW by 2027.
Mobilizing investments by institutional investors, foreign and domestic, is a requisite for India to meet its clean energy targets. India needs an additional ~450 billion of capital by 2040 to reach ~480GW of renewable energy capacity.
Complete decarbonization of the electricity demand of Indian Railways (IR) – transitioning from the current, largely fossil-fuel based energy mix to clean energy like solar and wind power – is likely to have multiple benefits.
IR is currently the world’s second largest railway network and is the single largest consumer of electricity in India, consuming about 18 TWh per year, or roughly 2% of the country’s total power generation. IR also consumes 2.6 billion liters of diesel annually, or 3.2% of the total diesel consumption of the transport sector in India.
India has ambitious renewable energy targets of 175GW by 2022. In order to meet this target, the renewable energy sector in India will require $189 billion in additional investment, including $57 billion in equity, and $132 billion in debt.
In order to expand the rooftop solar industry in India, there is a need to develop policy solutions, business models, and financing instruments which can address these barriers. One promising solution to manage these barriers is the third party financing model.
Indian Railways (IR) is currently the world’s second largest railway network and is the single largest consumer of electricity in India, consuming about 18 TWh per year, or roughly 2% of the country’s total power generation.
As India prepares to meet its increasing energy demands, which will likely double by 2030, the government has set a path towards ambitious renewable energy targets of 175GW by 2022. Raising enough finance will be central to achieving these targets.
