If there's one thing that excites Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it's the promise of solar power as a source of clean and plentiful energy.
Other Modi schemes - Swachh Bharat, Make in India, Digital India - may get more media acreage but solar power is what drives Modi's energy vision. Power Minister Piyush Goyal too regards renewables as a key portfolio and solar is the principal component along with wind and nuclear power.
A new report published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) - titled New Energy Outlook (NEO) 2016 - is a vindication of India's focus on solar energy. Total global installed power capacity is slated to rise from 6,418 gigawatts (GW) today to 13,464 GW in 2040. But the real eye-opener is the dramatic transformation in the ratio of solar power compared to other forms of energy.
Today coal, gas and hydro account for 75 per cent of global installed capacity (see table). Solar accounts for a mere 4 per cent. Within 25 years, solar power will cater to 29 per cent of global energy needs.
Individually, coal will fall from 31 per cent today to 16 per cent in 2040. Gas will decline from 26 per cent to 15 per cent and hydro from 18 per cent to 12 per cent.
At 29 per cent, solar will thus be the biggest - and among the cheapest - sources of energy. India is well equipped to take advantage of this shift. We have plentiful sunshine and solar costs are falling. Per unit costs for solar power in India are edging down towards Rs. 4 per unit.
India presently has only 7 GW of installed solar capacity. With prices for solar in other global markets in the Middle East and Africa falling to around Rs 2 per unit, the potential for growth is huge. Solar power is not only cheap. It's clean.
Wind power is another source of clean energy India should increasingly tap. Windy Britain is doing this successfully though costs are still high. Nonetheless, Bloomberg's New Energy Outlook 2016 projects that wind power will account for 13 per cent of total global installed capacity by 2040, up from the current 7 per cent.
All together, clean and renewable energy sources will account for nearly 50 per cent of global power capacity by 2040 compared to just 16 per cent today. Coal, gas and hydro will fall collectively from 75 per cent to 43 per cent.
For India, achieving a fine balance between industrial development and clean energy can help it meet the carbon emission targets formulated at last year's Paris conference on climate change.
Solar is the key that could unlock India's future under the sun.
Columnist
Minhaz Merchant is the biographer of Rajiv Gandhi and Aditya Birla and author of The New Clash of Civilizations (Rupa, 2014). He is founder of Sterling Newspapers Pvt. Ltd. which was acquired by the Indian Express group
