It is time for India to take action on energy transition, said Denmark Ambassador Freddy Svane on Wednesday adding that the country has set really ambitious target and cannot afford to ignore one source of energy now.

Denmark Ambassador was speaking at the SIA Fest, a joint initiative by Tata Power and News18, aimed to promote their mass movement Sustainable Is Attainable (SIA) by creating an open forum for dialogue to drive green energy adoption in India.

Svane said, "It takes three things: visionary political leadership, innovative business community and will and risk taking among bureaucrats."

"We are not here to cheat or preach you. I feel sad when I see good chances are missed. I have been working on it for so long time but there is no movement from the Indian government side. Denmark has been moving."

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Over the past 40 years, Denmark has integrated 7 GW of wind and PV solar capacity into the electric grid. 2022, As per the fresh numbers from 2022, the country’s electricity needs are now covered by 60 percent renewables.

Svane said, "I come from a country where we were forced to take green energy transition. That was not a political decision. India has the luxury and your honourable prime minister took the decision in Glasgow. So it calls for real action. The summit is fantastic but it is time for action and that's what you should be doing, and you cannot ignore one source of energy. You can't afford it. It should not be allowed to happen but it is happening sadly."

Speaking on the challenges of the green energy transition, Ambassador of Israel Naor Gilon said that storage is the biggest issue and explained how the joint ventures between Indian and Israeli companies are the way forward to achieve the clean energy transition goal.

"Storage is probably the biggest challenge. Since for example, solar has the issue of being relevant only 14-16 hours a day and during the evening if you want to maintain, it is problem of storage. Israel, in general, we are very tiny country of ten million people. We are responsible for less than 0.2% of the CO2 emissions of the world, so we try to behave and serve well. It is a challenge to our own behaviour but more importantly, we are trying to give technological solution into clean technology in general."

"Storage is one of the big issues that is there in Israel just recently. There is one Israeli company named Phinergy, that has with Indian oil, joint venture, on aluminum oil battery. Why it so significant? Because aluminium is something that India has in abundance and they have also vehicles but they are going to give backing to antenna stations and they have different agreements already in contract year, this joint venture, so this is one avenue, and there are many avenues that we are looking into technologically but for us, storage, undoubtfully is one of the biggest hurdles, in order to make sustainable, more affordable, and more confident and not having to need a backing of fossil fuel to the clean energy," he added.

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(Edited by : Pradeep John)