India has hired PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to formulate a plan to scale up the country’s solar energy capacity.
The tasks set out for PwC as part of the contract include: assess the power scenario in the nation; review solar energy policies of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE); make a realistic projection of future power demand; and provide methods to scale up to meet the demand.
Further, PwC will also evaluate the possibility of attaining grid parity, and assess the robustness of the current power evacuation system to meet the government’s plan to build 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022.
PwC will involve relevant stakeholders in its formulation of a method to scale up to meet the country’s solar energy target.
At present the country has an installed solar power capacity of 3 GW. It is only about tenth of the renewable energy capacity and about 1 percent of the total power capacity of India.
But currently the growth in solar power largely depends on the governments promotional policies at the national and state levels.
Since its launch in 2009, National Solar Mission has been driving solar installations in the country. Under the aspired growth of the renewable energy sector to 100 GW installed capacity by 2022, solar power would contribute about 25 percent to the total installed capacity of power.
The target requires a growth at the rate of 12 GW annually. It is perhaps to meet this challenging task that the government has roped in PwC to facilitate the growth.
Ajith Kumar S