Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal has said that India has the potential to grow into a global supplier of renewable energy equipment. He was addressing the session themed ‘making India a global manufacturing hub in renewable energy manufacturing’ at the 3^rd edition of Confederation of Indian Industry’s renewable energy conference.

Shri Goyal noted that atmanirbharta in renewable energy is integral to India’s economic security and national security. He asked that having achieved power for all, India must now aspire to achieve the goal of sustainable power for all. He stressed that there is a need to maintain the entire renewable energy supply chain in India to the best of our ability, right from the equipment stage up to innovation and new technology, so that we can lead the world rather than being dependent on other countries. This is a great time to protect and nurture this industry and so that India may also grow into the world supplier in the renewable energy sector, he added. 

He pointed out that India had been dependent on imports of machinery and equipment in both the renewable energy and conventional energy sectors and the imports of fuels like oil and coal, which continues to the day. He said that the prices of these products were subject to geopolitical uncertainties. 

The Minister emphasized that the pandemic and conflict had taught us that ultimately, we would have to be self-sufficient in the sources for equipment and machinery for the energy sector and reminisced that due to the supply chain disruptions caused by Covid, many renewable energy projects had suffered setbacks. He urged Indian industry to draw from international collaborations and learnings and make India atmanirbhar in renewable energy and achieve twin advantages of sustainability and energy security.

Shri Goyal expressed confidence that India had the potential to become a good source of supply of renewable energy equipment for other countries who were seeking to integrate trusted partners in their global value chains. He added that India, with its upholding of rule of law, strong focus on transparency and stable and predictable policy environment is today looked upon as a trusted partner who won’t let down their partners even in the most trying of circumstances.  

Shri Goyal said that the targets set by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the commitments made by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at Glasgow were truly overwhelming. He reiterated India’s commitment to achieve 500 GW renewable energy generation by 2030 and said that the target gave us sufficient market size to encourage our investors and manufacturers to set up more and more manufacturing facilities in India.  He said that government’s thrust on renewable energy would help the industry achieve much necessary economies of scale and competitive edge and empower it to contribute to increasing our exports and foreign earnings. 

The Minister expressed his happiness at the rejuvenation that the renewable energy sector was experiencing now. He noted that India was leading the way in wind energy and said that in solar energy the efforts that MNRE has made such as the PLI scheme, will incentivise domestic manufacturing and will help us be self-sufficient and become suppliers to the world in renewable energy equipment. 

Shri Goyal highlighted several initiatives such as the Modhera model of solar powered villages, Asia’s largest bio-CNG plant in Indore etc and said that all of these were good signs for local manufacturing in the renewable energy sector. Local Manufacturing would create jobs, promote economic growth and make our economy resilient, he added.  

The Minister reiterated the government’s commitment to take prosperity to the last mile through initiatives like the National Education Policy, Ayushman Bharat, Jal Jeevan Mission etc. He said that energy security in small villages will be the next big thrust area for the centre. He asked that cutting edge technologies such as AI, IoT be used in a bigger way to empower MSMEs to become quality suppliers of material for our renewable energy sector.  

The Minister expressed concern that the entire circular economy of ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ had been largely unorganized. If we are successful in keeping sustainability at the core of our plans, we can modernize the recycling sector by bringing skills into our recycling processes and create huge value especially in the conversion of waste to wealth.“There is great potential for technology driven solutions in this sector”, he added.

The Minister underscored that the economic and the ecological value of the circular energy is phenomenal and said that it can become a source of energy in addition to saving us from the environmental hazards of huge landfills. 

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AD/KP/MS