India’s ambitions of increasing its non-fossil fuel based energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030 are formidable and present a unique set of opportunities and execution challenges. The debt requirement for an additional 340 GW Renewable Energy (RE) target works out to ~ Rs. 14 Lakh Cr over a period of 9 years.

In its journey towards the 175 GW renewable energy capacity target by December 2022, India surpassed the 100 GW milestone in August 2021. With just over a year remaining for the target deadline, have a lot of ground to cover.

A robust regulatory framework is critical to the development of the renewable energy sector. This will be increasingly important going ahead, as India begins to integrate a significantly larger amount of renewable energy into its energy mix.

As the energy sector moves away from fossil fuels and shifts towards a greater share of renewables and greater electrification, these tax revenues will come under strain.

As the Renewable Energy share in the electricity mix increases steadily, it becomes important to understand the extent and nature of RE specific regulatory matters and litigation in the sector.

Electricity revenue subsidies finance 10% to 30% of the revenue required by electricity distribution companies (DISCOMs) in India. Consequently, they have significant impacts not only on the state exchequer but also on DISCOM finances.

2017-18 witnessed impressive growth of renewable energy (RE) in the electricity sector wherein two major milestones were crossed.

Agriculture occupies a critical position in the country’s economy, ensuring food security, providing livelihoods, and indeed as a way of life for most rural people. Due to many reasons, growth in agriculture has been largely driven by groundwater based irrigation, powered by electricity.

Following the Supreme Court judgement of 2014 cancelling the allocation of more than 200 captive coal blocks, the government quickly brought in legislation and began the process of their reallocation. While the new allocation framework is an improvement over the previous regime, it suffers from many potentially serious shortcomings.

Renewable energy-based mini-grids can be an important alternative to, or enhance the effectiveness of, central grid extension as a way to increase access to reliable electricity services. While there are a number of challenges to implementing RE mini-grids, many of these can be addressed by well-conceived policy measures.

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