Not easy for India to meet renewables target by 2030: IEA

28 Oct 2022 CW Team

India faces a major challenge in meeting rising electricity demand with renewables and nuclear energy on a large enough scale to replace coal-fired generation, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

In its report ‘World Energy Outlook 2022’, the IEA predicted that India would see the largest increase in energy demand of any country, with an increase in population due to urbanisation and industrialisation.

India is progressing towards a renewable energy capacity target of 500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 to meet nearly two-thirds of the country’s rapidly rising demand for electricity. However, the sheer scale of its development means that the combined import bill for fossil fuels doubles over the next two decades in the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), with oil by far the largest component.

Coal demand in the STEPS is expected not to peak until the early 2030s, when the deployment of renewables in the power sector speeds up. In the Announced Pledges Scenario (APS), this peak occurs in the late 2020s, and the subsequent decline in coal demand is considerably steeper.

Government programmes such as the Gati Shakti National Master Plan and the Self-Reliant India scheme, and strong economics underpin robust growth in renewables and electric mobility, notably for two/three-wheelers. Renewables meet more than 60 per cent of the growth in demand for power, and account for 35 per cent of the electricity mix by 2030. Solar PV alone accounts for more than 15%. However, coal still meets a third of overall energy demand growth by 2030, and oil, mainly for transport, another quarter.

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