Land owners as stakeholders in renewable energy projects: Minister

The Dollar Business Bureau   Ahead of The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s Global Investors Meet & Expo (RE-Invest) from February 15-17, 2015 in New Delhi, with a theme to attract large scale investments for the renewable energy sector in India, the government is contemplating making the land owners as stakeholders in the Renewable Energy projects so that they get annual or monthly rent. The new move is to generate 1,00,000 MW of installed solar power capacity by 2022 from the present capacity of 3,000 MW. Piyush Goyal, Power, Coal and Renewable Energy Minister said that the government is also looking at rooftop solar model. He said, “We are not only looking at large plants like 40,000 MW but are planning to do through rooftop solar.” Stating that renewable energy contributes more than 6% of the electricity requirement of the country, Goyal said, “We are planning to bring the States on board for the renewable energy programme so that we can take double the contribution of the renewable energy in the next three years.” Goyal said that the government is looking at generating 200 GW or 2,00,000 MW with investments to the tune of $200 bn. He expressed confidence that this is possible especially, with several domestic and international firms queuing up to tap the potential of the green power. “There is a huge response and several companies have committed to invest in renewable energy. And, the commitments have far exceeded our expectations,” he added.  

This article was published on February 11, 2015.