The Indian government has just published its energy program for the next ten years which includes plans to produce 57 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by the year 2020.
This goes well beyond the target of 40 per cent by 2030 which was decided as part of the Paris Agreement last year.
An excellent piece of news from the world’s sixth largest economic power, the declaration comes after the inauguration of the world’s biggest solar power plant in Tamil Nadu in the south of the country earlier this month. Boasting a whopping 2.5 million solar panels, the plant is capable of providing energy to over 150,000 homes.
According to The Guardian, Tim Buckley, director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said that India is moving beyond fossil fuels at a pace scarcely imagined only two years ago.
A huge step forward that can largely be explained by the spectacular decrease in costs of developing renewable energy plants in the past five years.
But to solidify these measures, the state must receive support from private investors. As such, Energy Minister Piyush Goyal has reached out to foreign companies to ask for funding.
Among those to respond was French energy giant EDF which has decided to invest $1.9 billion in Indian wind and solar energy development. Telecommunication group SoftBank and Taiwanese company Foxcon have also stepped up to the plate offering $19.8 billion between them.
Here’s hoping other countries follow India’s example with ambitious targets – and that the big investors decide to join in too.
