India’s energy transition is gathering pace, with renewable power taking centre stage as the country looks to fuel its fast-growing economy.
But while India has made significant strides in expanding clean energy capacity, experts warn that major challenges remain – particularly when it comes to the infrastructure needed to store and deliver that power reliably.
“You have to make the grid reliable,” said Amit Sharma, CEO of Tata Consulting Engineers.
“You need battery storage, which is quite expensive, and a lot of pumped storage, which takes solar and wind energy, puts that in energy reservoirs, and then feeds it back into the grid.”
Experts say that will require massive investments.
“We think around US$400 billion cumulatively over the next 15 years will be needed to support the build-out of power infrastructure,” said Paul McConnell, head of outlooks and scenarios at S&P Global.
“(There’s little value in) adding generating capacity if it can’t deliver power to where it’s needed.”
India, which remains heavily dependent on fossil fuel imports, sees clean energy as a way to rein in costs while reducing its carbon footprint.
The government is aiming to nearly double the nation’s non-fossil fuel power capacity by 2030.
Those ambitions are on full display this week at India Energy Week in Goa, the country’s flagship energy conference, where the clean energy transition was firmly in the spotlight.
One emerging option being showcased is green hydrogen – a fuel produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity.
But it remains costly, at just under US$4 per kilogram.
“If we can bring it down to below US$3 … there will be a public policy pressure (to) shift to green hydrogen … since we spend US$150 billion on imports of energy (each year),” said India’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri.
