Last year Crisil, the rating agency mentioned in its report that India will not be able to achieve the target of generating 100GW solar power by 2022. It further mentioned that at the current phase, the country would touch 70-80GW against the capacity of 21.65 GW.
However, India has now achieved its solar power target four-years ahead of its schedule as a part of its climate change mitigation strategy. Dr. Akhilesh Gupta, Adviser and Head of Climate Change Programme of the Department of Science and Technology said, "The target of installing 20 GW of solar power by 2022 was achieved four years ahead of schedule in January 2018.”
"India has now set a new target of achieving 100 GW of solar power by 2022. It is a global trend vis-a-vis climate change that least contributors are the worst affected, he further added.
Source: Firstpost.com / Solar energy via solar panels
Although India is the least contributor to global warming, it is one of the worst affected countries. Furthermore, the rising temperature in the Himalayan region is a challenge the country is facing due to global phenomenon.
During one of the lectures delivered by Gupta on "Climate change and India's sustainable development pathway," on the occasion of 30th Foundation Day of biodiversity conservation and research organizations Aaranyak, he pointed out that the Indian government has taken major initiatives to bring down the problems which resulted to the decrease in the emission intensity.
Key Concerns-
Earlier in the report presented by the Crisil, one of the key areas of concern was the Rooftop Solar segment. The solar mission’s target for the rooftop segment-using rooftops of commercial and industrial units to generate their power and less dependency on the grid is 40GW by 2022.
According to Rahul Prithiani, director, Crisil Research, "There are execution and counter-party risks to the rooftop segment, and that’s why we’re expecting the big shortfall here."
India in May 2017, achieved a record of low solar power tariff of Rs 2.44 per unit. Moreover, there were major initiatives by the center to bring down problems leading to the decrease in emission intensity of India’s GDP by 12 percent between 2005 and 2010.
India is currently the leading country having the largest production of energy from renewable sources, which is 34.6 percent of the total installed power capacity while large hydro installed capacity is 45 GW. The Wind power capacity is 36,625 MW, making fourth-largest wind power producer.
