Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation

PM’s address at the 3rd RE-INVEST 2020

  • It is wonderful to see all of you as part of the third edition of REINVEST. In the earlier editions, we spoke about our plans for a journey from megawatts to gigawatts in renewable energy.
  • We also spoke about “One Sun, One World One Grid” to leverage solar energy. In a short time, many of these plans are becoming a reality.
  • Friends, In the last 6 years, India is travelling on an unparalleled journey. We are expanding our generation capacity and network to ensure every citizen of India has access to electricity to unlock his full potential.
  • At the same time, we are rapidly expanding generation of energy through renewable sources. I would like to give you some facts.
  • Today, India’s renewable power capacity is the 4th largest in the world. It is growing at the fastest speed among all major countries.
  • The renewable energy capacity in India is currently 136 Giga Watts, which is about 36 per cent of our total capacity. By 2022, the share of renewable capacity will increase to over 220 Giga Watts.
  • You would be happy to know that our annual renewable energy capacity addition has been exceeding that of coal based thermal power since 2017.
  • In the last 6 years, we increased our installed renewable energy capacity by two and half times. In the last 6 years, the installed solar energy capacity has increased 13 times.
  • Friends, India’s progress in the field of renewable energy is an outcome of our commitment and conviction in fighting climate change.
  • Even when it was not affordable, we invested in renewable energy. Now our investment and scale is bringing costs down.
  • We are showing to the world that sound environmental policies can also be sound economics. Today, India is among the very few countries to be on track to achieve the 2 degree compliance goal.
  • Friends, Our transition to cleaner sources of energy has been driven by the approach of Access, Efficiency and Evolution.
  • When I talk about providing access to electricity, you can estimate its scale in the numbers. In the last few years over 2.5 crore or 25 million households were provided electricity connections.
  • When I talk about energy efficiency, we have not limited this mission only to one ministry or department.
  • We have ensured that it becomes a target for the entire government. All our policies have a consideration of achieving energy efficiency.
  • This includes LED bulbs, LED street-lights, smart-metres, push to Electric Vehicles and decreasing transmission losses.
  • When I talk about energy evolution, with PM-KUSUM we are aiming to power our agriculture sector by providing solar based power to irrigate the fields.