The National Institution for Transforming India (Niti) Aayog, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s think tank, will come up with a national energy policy in the next two-three months.
The policy which will form the basis of India’s energy security paradigm will have a focus on clean energy resources such as solar and natural gas.In addition, the policy will also look at ways to improve the quality of air which has deteriorated significantly over the past years.
The earlier policy did not focus much on energy resources such as solar and natural gas. The price of solar power was too high when the previous policy was framed. Also, at the time, 37% of the country’s population did not have access to electricity while about 75% of the people used solid fuel for cooking.
Solar power tariffs have witnessed a steady decline in the past five years from Rs17.91 kilowatt per hour (kWh) in 2011 to Rs.4.34 per unit in January 2016. In comparison, new thermal power projects tariff average around Rs.4.50 per unit. India has an installed capacity of 26.8 gigawatt (GW) of wind and 7.6GW of solar power.
The government targets to generate 175GW from renewable sources by 2022, including 100GW solar power.
By Baishakhi Dutta
