With a view to rapidly arresting the fast growing carbon footprint in the power sector, globally, projects to harness renewable energy are being taken up with the highest priority. According to the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP’s) report: 9th ‘Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2015,’ which has been prepared by the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the past year (2014) brought a rebound of green energy investments worldwide with a surge of a solid 17% to $270 Billion.
Brushing aside the challenge of sharply lower crude oil prices – this sudden increase reversed the investment dip of the past two years and was mainly driven by investments in solar and wind energy. (Refer Graph: 1)
Key findings of the report include:
- China saw by far the biggest renewable energy investments in 2014 – a record $83.3 billion, up 39% from 2013. The US was second at $38.3 billion, up 7% on the year but well below its all-time high reached in 2011. Third was Japan, at $35.7 billion, 10% higher than in 2013 and its biggest total ever.
- A key feature of the 2014 result was the rapid expansion of renewables into new markets in developing countries. Investment in developing countries, at $131.3 billion, was up 36% on the previous year and came the closest ever to overhauling the total for developed economies, at $138.9 billion, up just 3% on the year. Additional to China, Brazil ($7.6 billion), India ($7.4 billion) and South Africa ($5.5 billion) were all in the top 10 of investing countries while more than $1 billion was invested in Indonesia, Chile, Mexico, Kenya and Turkey.
- Wind, solar, biomass and waste-to-power, geothermal, small hydro and marine power contributed an estimated 9.1% of world electricity generation in 2014, compared to 8.5% in 2013. This would be equivalent to a saving of 1.3 gigatonnes of CO2 taking place as a result of the installed capacity of those renewable sources.
- As in previous years, the market in 2014 was dominated by record investments in solar and wind, which accounted for 92% of overall investment in renewable power and fuels. Investment in solar jumped 29% to $149.6 billion, the second highest figure ever, while wind investment increased 11% to a record $99.5 billion. These expenditures added 49GW of wind capacity and 46GW of solar PV, both records.
- Investment in Europe advanced less than 1% to $57.5 billion. There were seven billion-dollar-plus financings of offshore wind projects, boosting the investment totals for the Netherlands, the UK and Germany. These included, at the euro equivalent of $3.8 billion, the largest single renewable energy asset finance deal ever, outside large hydro – that of the 600MW Gemini project in Dutch waters.
Indian scenario
Under the leadership of India’s dynamic Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, our country is also striding forward in the field of renewable energy. Few days back the government has launched the Indian Wind Resource Atlas at 100 metre level, which is certainly a highly useful tool for the wind energy stake holders. The government’s target of 60,000 MW of wind power by 2022 is highlighting the needed focus on the green power’s contribution in India’s sustainable development.
The union government has also raised the solar power generation capacity addition target by five times to 1,00,000 MW by 2022. The Ministry has chalked out year wise target to achieve 100,000 MW by 2022 as shown in the Table 1.
As on 31st August 2015, India’s total capacity of renewable energy generation has been given in Table: 2 and 3. Grid connected renewable power has been a major focus area in the ministry. So far, the installed capacity of renewable power is about 37,000 MW.
Wind power has made significant contribution to this achievement by way of around 24,000 MW installed capacity, mainly in the states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Wind electric generators of unit sizes between 225 kW to 2.50 MW have been deployed across the country. India ranks 5th in the world after China, USA, Germany and Spain. Necessity for energy security and caution on environmental degradation made wind as one of the non-ignorable sources in Indian energy mix.
Although, the figures show that as far as harnessing renewable energy is concerned, wind energy set-ups have gone far ahead of others, it’s not that the government is not focusing on the other areas. With a long coast line of around 7,500 km, India has a great potential (24 X 7) for harnessing wind energy (both onshore and offshore), which is quite cost-competitive.
Also, the government has reinstated accelerated depreciation to boost wind power sector in its first budget – so that people can expand and take benefits of the same.
However, for solar energy also, internationally the cost of modules are coming down – but these parks (solar parks) need wide ground areas (lands), which are becoming costlier. Even then of late 25 big solar parks have been planned in the country. Also, off -shore projects are coming up soon.
The present government is also trying to boost the other segments of renewable energy; however, there the growth rate is still slow owing to several technological, feasibility and other restrictions. Thus, only wind and solar energies can accelerate the mission of countrywide electrification at this moment. In the words of Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy, “Union government has equal focus on various forms of renewable power and does not discriminate between solar, wind or biogas power in terms of providing support to these renewable sources.”
Project finance
India needs around $200 billion to meet the targets of installing 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity and 60,000 MW of wind power capacity by 2022. In order to achieve the targeted solar capacity of (100 GW) alone, the investment required would be around ` 6,00,000 crores (@ ` 6 crores per MW at present rate) out of which about ` 4,20,000 crores is proposed to be debt sourced from both domestic and international financial institutions including multilateral and bilateral organisations.
During the latest 2-day visit of Narendra Modi to California, several talks have been initiated with the NRI investors on investment in the startup renewable projects, however, to further walk the talks, the govt. has to sort out the issues of tax filing, method of charging Capital Gain Tax etc. Also, the government has to redefine and ease the startup definition – the process has already been started.
A few significant projects installed in India in 2015
Suzlon Group has completed the commissioning of 100.8 MW wind power turnkey project for CLP India. The project will provide electricity to over 50,000 homes and curb ~ 0.21 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. The company will offer operations and maintenance for 20 years through an Integrated Service Package contract. The project is located at Tejuva, Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, which is the home to the country’s largest windpark with total capacity additions pegged at 1500MW out of which over 1200 MW have already been commissioned.
The R&D installation is part of a test project for Vikram Solar’s new floating module technology in Kolkata… Source: Vikram Solar
Cochin International airport, the country’s first airport built under PPP model, has been the first airport in the world that completely operates on solar power. Bosch has commissioned 12 MW solar project for Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL). Hon’ble Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has inaugurated the 12 MWp solar power plant, on 18th August 2015, comprising 46,150 solar panels laid across 45 acres near the cargo complex. Now, Cochin airport’s solar power plant is producing 50,000 to 60,000 units of electricity per day – that is to be consumed for all its operational functions, which technically makes the airport absolutely power neutral.
Suzlon Group has completed the commissioning of 100.8 MW wind power turnkey project for CLP India, which is located at Tejuva, Jaisalmer in Rajasthan…
Vikram Solar has completed India’s first floating solar power plant. The R&D installation is part of a test project for Vikram Solar’s new floating module technology in cooperation with the Arka Renewable Energy College in Kolkata. The project aims to create a system suitable for any body of water with the possibility of being scaled up for use in any other given environment. The installation is completely flexible and consists of ten 1 kW fibreglass modules, which make up the floating platform itself. The system is firmly anchored to the bottom of the lake and is connected to the grid using a submersible cable. The overall system is designed to last for 25 years and produce a minimum generation of 14 MWh/year.
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