Ministerial Thematic Forum on Energy Transition for the

High Level Dialogue on Energy,

23 June 2021

India Statement by Mr. R.K. Singh,

Hon’ble Minister of Power, New and Renewable, Government of India

Excellencies,

It is a great pleasure to participate as a Global Theme Champion in this Ministerial Forum on the High Level Dialogue on Energy.

Excellencies,

In the past six years, we have brought about a total transformation in the energy sector in India, both in terms of energy access and energy transition. We carried out perhaps the largest expansion of access in the shortest time-frame anywhere in the world.  We connected 28 million homes in just 18 months to achieve universal access.  We were power deficit.  We added 139 GW to make our country power surplus. We connected the whole country into one grid and enhance the inter-regional transfer capacity to more than 100 GW, converting the whole country into one electricity market. All this resulted in bringing down the consumption of kerosene for cooking and lightning by 77% and resulting in a reduction of CO2 emissions by 17.2 million tons of CO2 emissions.

The availability of uninterrupted power supply throughout the country has resulted in reduce of use of diesel gensets resulting in a further reduction of CO2 emission by 35 million tons of CO2 per annum. The huge expansion of access has been accompanied by energy transition at a pace not seen anywhere else in the world.

We have pledged in our NDCs that by 2030, 40% of our power generation capacity will be from non-fossil fuel sources.  We are already at 38%.  If the capacity at the construction stage is added, we are already at 48%.  Our total renewable energy capacity in wind and hydro has gone up three times from 2014. Our solar power generation capacity has gone up by fifteen-and-half times, compared to 2014. We have emerged as the country with the fastest growing renewable energy capacity in the world.  We have attracted investment of more than US$ 70 billion of renewable energy from 2014-15 onwards.

We have set ourselves a target of installing 450 GWs of renewable energy capacity by 2030. We are one of the world’s leaders in the energy efficiency as well. We have a unique programme under which we set energy efficiency standards for industries. We have perhaps the largest programme for the LED deployment in the world.  A total of 1,634 million bulbs and tube lights have been replaced by LED. We also have a programme for replacing all our street lights by LED street lights. Uptill now, 11.8 million street lights have been replaced by LED street lights.  Our energy efficiency measures have cumulatively resulted in electrical energy savings of 316 billion units per year in 2021.  The total reductions of CO2 emissions by energy efficient measures alone are 320 million tons per annum.  We are the only major economy and the only G-20 country whose actions are in consonance with the target of keeping two degree rise in global temperature.

In the next four to five months, we aim to come out with large grids of green hydrogen to be utilised in the fertiliser and the petroleum sectors. We already have a programme for electrical mobile vehicles under which we are encouraging setting up of charging stations and switching over to electrical cars and electrical buses.

Through our International Solar Alliance, we are sharing our experience with the member-states. Today, there are ninety seven signatories to the International Solar Alliance Charter.  The ISA has emerged as an institution for helping countries in the energy access and energy transition. We have in conjunction with ISA a Program called “One Sun One World One Grid”, based on the fact that sun never sets and grid connectivity will lead to a reduction in the requirement of storage.  We have already initiated studies on this in conjunction with the World Bank. The International Solar Alliance has taken up projects in many countries in Small Island States and is also working on the mechanism for setting up a risk reduction fund so that investments in renewable energy can be facilitated in countries where it is required.

I take this opportunity to urge all the countries, to join the International Solar Alliance, so that together we can help other countries to achieve universal access using green energy.

Thank You.