oppn parties Green Energy: Despite Increasing Usage, India Behind on Committments

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  • The home ministry has notified 50% constable-level jobs in BSF for direct recruitment for ex-Agniveers
  • Supreme Court said that if an accused or even a convict obtains a NOC from the concerned court with the rider that permission would be needed to go abroad, the government cannot obstruct renewal of their passport
  • Supreme Court said that criminal record and gravity of offence play a big part in bail decisions while quashing the bail of 5 habitual offenders
  • PM Modi visits Bengal, fails to holds a rally in Matua heartland of Nadia after dense fog prevents landing of his helicopter but addresses the crowd virtually from Kolkata aiprort
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  • Indian women take on Sri Lanka is the first match of the T20 series at Visakhapatnam today
  • U19 Asia Cup: India take on Pakistan today for the crown
  • In a surprisng move, the selectors dropped Shubman Gill from the T20 World Cup squad and made Axar Patel the vice-captain. Jitesh Sharma was also dropped to make way for Ishan Kishan as he was performing well and Rinku Singh earned a spot for his finishing abilities
  • Opposition parties, chiefly the Congress and TMC, say that changing the name of the rural employment guarantee scheme is an insult to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi
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  • Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that if India were a 'dead economy' as claimed by opposition parties, India's rating would not have been upgraded
  • The Insurance Bill, to be tabled in Parliament, will give more teeth to the regulator and allow 100% FDI
  • Nitin Nabin took charge as the national working president of the BJP
  • Division in opposition ranks as J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah distances the INDIA bloc from vote chori and SIR pitch of the Congress
U19 World Cup - Pakistan thrash India by 192 runs ////// Shubman Gill dropped from T20 World Cup squad, Axar Patel replaces him as vice-captain
oppn parties
Green Energy: Despite Increasing Usage, India Behind on Committments

By Ashwini Agarwal
First publised on 2016-10-18 20:06:08

With more and more corporates willing to buy power directly from green power generating companies, is the sector finally finding a niche? A report in The Economic Times has identified Taj Hotels, Tata Teleservices, Philips India, JK Tyres and 100 more who are buying power directly from power generators like ReNew Power, CleanMax and others. This means that the power generators do not have to depend on state utilities to buy their production and can now get a better price. They will just have to pay a wheeling charge to the utility for carrying the power on the grid.

Despite a lot of focus, India’s green energy production is nowhere near what it has committed in international forums. But since India has already ratified the Paris climate agreement, it will have to keep its commitments. The biggest drawback for green energy is that many states are simply not interested. They have schemes and energy parks, but those are just in name. In the initial euphoria, many investors came forward to announce units. But most were never set up. The cost-benefit scenario for the investors, despite government subsidies, was not very lucrative till recently.

But with things moving up on the GHG front and the rich countries committing to help the developing nations in sourcing energy from solar, wind and other renewable sources, there should be another round of investor interest in setting up green energy units. Set up cost has also fallen with solar panel prices having dropped by 25 percent in some cases. Land, however, remains a bottleneck. Also, state utilities are reluctant to pay a good price and payment is also notoriously slow. India will need to remove the bottlenecks fast if it has any intention of being a major producer of green energy.