The setting sun on India’s solar dreams

MUMBAI : In September, while speaking at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York, Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed to setting up 450 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil fuel power by 2022. With this, he more than doubled the initial target of 175GW of green energy that his own government had set in 2018. “We must accept that if we have to overcome a serious challenge like climate change, then what we are doing at the moment is just not enough,” Modi told the audience of gathered world leaders in New York.

Back home, however, the renewable energy industry that Modi is resting his hopes on is flailing. India’s installed green energy capacity stands at about 65GW today. It was expected to cross 100GW by December 2022, definitely short of the government’s 175GW target and far behind 450GW. But even that expected 2022 projection now seems a bit too optimistic.