India Needs $250 Billion Investment By 2030
By 2030, the county plans to have a capacity of 500 gigawatts of renewable energy.
According to a report by Moody's Investors Service, for India to meet its renewables capacity target of 500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, the country will require an investment of between $225 billion and $250 billion over the following eight years from both the public and private sectors.
Moody's noted that the country's significant expansion of renewable energy footprint in the last four to five years was due to the supportive government policies that encouraged the domestic private sector and overseas investors to participate in the industry. In addition to investments, this would require continuous policy support from the government, Moody said.
"According to Abhishek Tyagi, a Vice President and Senior Credit Officer at Moody's, "The country wants to treble its renewable energy capacity to 500GW by 2030 from 157GW as of March 2022, and to have 50 percent of the electricity output come from non-fossil fuel sources."
"The primary enabler will be the competitiveness of wind and solar power generation over coal-fired power generation as a result of technology breakthroughs, favorable government policies, private sector participation, and other factors." "he noted.
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Moody said, the private sector has been the driving force behind investments in renewable energy. This sector is responsible for over 90 percent of the renewable capacity that has been installed (excluding hydropower). In contrast, sovereign wealth funds have been active despite typically having a low cost of funding.
According to the report, the unsound financial health of state-owned distribution businesses will continue to be a concern for India's renewable energy sector.
It was also mentioned that the typical practice of delaying payments to these businesses leads to an accumulation of off-takers' receivables and a rise in working capital debt for corporations that deal with renewable energy.
According to Moody, the poor financial health of these state-owned distribution companies caused delays in the signing of power purchase agreements. These delays often result in the postponement or cancellation of projects.
It is India's goal to achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2070.
Why Is India Buying Russian Oil?
India has taken advantage of low prices to scale up oil imports from Russia when global energy prices have been rising.
Following its invasion of Ukraine, there were fewer clients for Russia's Ural crude oil, with some international governments and firms preferring to shun Russian energy exports, and its price has decreased.
The US has encouraged India not to buy too much Russian oil. However, it's admitted that it can't ban these sales because there are no secondary penalties on countries doing business with Russia.