India wants West to pay for solar energy plan

Canberra Times
Thursday 6/8/2009 Page: 10

India has decided to push ahead with an ambitious plan to generate clean electricity through the power of the sun - and, after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it wants rich nations to pay the bill. Although the country has virtually no solar energy today, the plan is to generate 20 GWs from sunlight by 2020. According to the International Energy Agency, global solar capacity is predicted to be 27GW by then - meaning that India expects to be producing 75% of this within 10 years.

About 400 million Indians have no electricity at all, and harnessing the country's abundant solar energy could help spark growth and end the power cuts that plague the nation. It would also, say some analysts, assuage international criticism that India is not doing enough to control its carbon emissions. It is heavily reliant on coal for power. The idea provoked intense and prolonged discussions at a meeting of the national climate change council in New Delhi on Monday.

Initial plans had anticipated that a government subsidy of about $US20 billion ($A23.7 billion), and falling production costs, would enable a long-term 2040 target of 200GW of solar energy. However, experts pointed out that a large government subsidy would contradict the Indian Government's stated position in the global warming treaty negotiations. India, with China and others, has demanded that the costs of clean technologies should be borne by developed nations, who have grown rich through their heavy use of fossil fuels.

Under the revised plan, India's solar mission will seek to achieve its targets by demanding technological and financial support from the developed nations. Leena Srivastava, of the TERI energy research institute, said, "In order to achieve its renewable energy targets, the Indian Government expects international financing as well as technology at an affordable cost." The move suggests that India could use its solar energy plan as a bargaining chip at the forthcoming climate change summit in Copenhagen.

The Government reaffirmed its hardline position last month when the Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, told the visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have been among the lowest emitters per capita, [have] to actually reduce emissions." If rich nations do fund the solar plan, the aim of both sides - economic growth for developing countries but with low-carbon emissions - will have been met.

Nonetheless, the plan's optimistic cost projections were debunked at Monday's meeting, leaving it unclear how much money the 2020 target would need. Kushal Singh Yadav, of the Centre for Science and Environment, said, "In terms of vision, it's a very good plan. But the nuts and bolts will remain uncertain until we get a fix on how much money is needed, and where it will come from." He said India had taken significant strides in wind energy production thanks to a shift in government policy. The solar mission plan could eventually do the same for generating energy from the sun.