India predicts to exceed Paris renewable energy target
The Indian government has forecast that it will exceed the renewable energy targets set in Paris last year by nearly half and three years ahead of schedule. A draft 10-year energy blueprint published this week predicts India will be generating 57% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2027. The Paris climate accord target was 40% by 2030. The forecast reflects an increase in private sector investment in Indian renewable energy projects over the past year, according to analysts. India’s energy minister, Piyush Goyal, has been appealing to wealthier nations to provide capital to invest in renewable energy projects to help the country reach and exceed the targets agreed in Paris in November 2015. Significant state investment has not been forthcoming, but Tim Buckley, a director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said India had made up the shortfall with an influx of capital from the domestic and overseas private sectors in the past 12 months. Japan’s Softbank has committed to invest $20bn (£16.2bn) in the Indian solar energy sector, in conjunction with Taiwanese company Foxconn and Indian business group Bharti Enterprises. Buckley said India’s “absolutely transformational” forecast was also driven by technological advancements that have led to the price of solar energy falling by 80% in the past five years. “India is moving beyond fossil fuels at a pace scarcely imagined only two years ago,” he said. “Goyal has put forward an energy plan that is commercially viable and commercially justified without subsidies, so you have big global corporations and utilities committing to it.”
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