India Aims To Surpass Renewable Energy Target

India aims to surpass its renewable energy target by 2022 as Asia’s third-largest economy pushes to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

The Ministry of New and Renewable energy is now aiming to install 225 gigawatts of solar and wind power capacity compared with the target 175 GW, RK Singh, the minister in charge, said at a press conference in New Delhi today. The target has not been increased though, he said.

Anand Kumar, secretary in the ministry, said bidding for 175 GW renewable energy capacity will be completed by March 2020—61 GW in 2018-2019 and 56 GW in 2019-2020.

So far, 70.03 GW of renewable energy capacity has been commissioned, 15.5 GW is under implementation and 25.1 GW has been tendered, according to the data released by the ministry. “Solar energy capacity has grown by nine times, while the wind energy capacity is up by 1.5 times in the last four years,” Kumar said.