With investments of $90 billion in renewable energy over the last decade, India is placed sixth in the list of countries that have made the most investments in clean energy, says a new study. China, the United States, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom are the top five countries. While China invested $758 billion, the US came in a distant second with $356 billion in the decade between 2010 and the first half of 2019.
These findings were published in a report titled ‘Global Trends In Renewable Energy Investment 2019’, which was commissioned by the UN Environment’s Economy Division, Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance and BloombergNEF.
While developed countries began investing in renewables much earlier, India began its solar revolution in 2015 and has caught up quickly with other major economies. It leads amongst developing countries. “In most cases, developing economies have only broken into their stride on renewables investment since solar and wind costs came down to competitive levels in mid-decade, so we could expect to see them taking up higher positions in a
list for 2015-2025, for instance,” reads the report.
The years between 2010 and 2019 saw $2.6 trillion invested in renewable energy worldwide, excluding large hydro. This is almost triple the amount compared to the previous decade. Solar took up half the investments with $1.3 trillion, while wind energy took up another $1 trillion.
Across the world, solar capacity has increased 26 times since 2009. From 25GW, solar is expected to reach 663GW by the end of the year.
In India, large solar parks in India have ensured a drastic drop in costs of producing electricity – reaching a historic low of Rs 2.44 per unit (or kWh) a couple of times in the past two years. While the total investment in renewable energy in India fell between 2017 and 2018, the installation of solar parks increased. In 2018, the country invested $11 billion in renewable energy, which was 15% lower than the amount it invested in 2017. However, 11 gigawatts (GW) of new photovoltaic capacity in India was commissioned in 2018, while 10.3GW was commissioned in 2017. Investments in solar energy reduced by 19%, mainly due to falling capital costs. “The Indian government’s decision in July 2018 to impose a 25% safeguard duty on PV modules and cells imported from China and Malaysia created a period of uncertainty for developers constructing solar projects at tariffs,” the report says.
Aggressively pushing its target of 175GW by 2022, NTPC – the country’s largest power producer, is planning to install two 5,000MW ultra mega solar parks in Gujarat and Rajasthan. The locations have been identified, the land acquisition process is set to begin soon, while bids from investors will be called for in March 2020.
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Source: weather
