Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy, RK Singh has said that carbon market rules will be issued in the next two weeks. The carbon market legislation has already been passed, and the government has received stakeholder comments on the draft which was circulated.

Pointing to the huge market barriers erected by the government to promote Make in India and protect domestic equipment manufacturers of renewable energy equipment, the Minister told CNBC-TV18 that if the domestic manufacturers are found to be overcharging the people of India with unreasonable pricing, the government will remove all market barriers and domestic players will have be made to face global competition.

While he agreed that trade barriers have started coming up with many developed countries, he said that the capacity addition in renewable energy has taken place via the private sector, with Singapore's sovereign wealth fund having invested directly and many other funds investing through different companies.

Singh explained that out of the two PLI schemes for domestic manufacturing of renewable energy equipment, the first one resulted in a manufacturing capacity of 8700 MW, which is currently under construction; while the second resulted in a manufacturing capacity of 39 GW, which is going to be started very soon. Stating that will have 47 to 48 GW renewable energy capacity under construction under the PLI scheme, he added that another 40-50 GW capacity is expected to come up without any PLI scheme.

Aiming at a cumulative renewable energy capacity of 100 GW by 2030, Singh said India is poised to emerge as a bigger exporter of equipment as Indian solar PV modules are already being exported to the US and wind equipment is being exported to several developed countries.

Responding to reports of China building dams over the Brahmaputra, he said that India knows that more reservoirs are needed to prevent constant flooding in several areas hence several water storage projects are being built downstream, with the proposed hydel project in Siang in Arunachal Pradesh poised to be India's largest.

Reminding that power doesn't come for free and should be paid for by the state which wants to give it for free, Singh said that the Union Government has laid down rules to ensure that power subsidy offered by states is paid for or else power will be switched off.

Describing the provision of free power announced by states on the verge of debt trap by availing further loans as "unfortunate", he said that none of such states are paying for it from their revenue and some are even unable to pay salaries of their employees on time.

Stating that India has transformed itself from a power deficit to a power surplus country, he urged people to ask respective state governments for what he termed as "gimmicks" of offering free power by taking loans.

India has reduced its net emissions intensity by 33 percent as per NDCs by 2021 and aims to reduce its emissions intensity by 45 percent by 2030.

Stating that India is the only major economy whose energy transition actions are consonant with sub-2 degree rise in global temperatures, the Minister said that India's two-ton per capita emissions are much lower than the global average of 6 tonnes and India contributes to just 4 percent of the global legacy CO2 load compared to its 17 percent-plus of the world population.

Also Read:Explained | What the Energy Conservation Bill aims to achieve

(Edited by : Sangam Singh)

First Published:Jun 22, 2023 2:36 PM IST