‘Huge amount of investment needed to meet 1.5 degree goal’

NEW DELHI: India is inching closer to achieving one of its goals under the Paris Agreement that of having 40% of its electric power from renewable sources by 2030, Ajay Mathur, director general of International Solar Alliance tells HT’S Jayashree Nandi in an interview. He said India will possibly do more than that with major boost in development of battery storage facilities in the next few years but coal power will continue to be a large source of electricity generation till 2040s and that the 1.5 degree goal may be impossible without carbon capture and storage facilities or extremely large investments in clean technologies globally. Edited excerpts:

How far are we from achieving one of our targets under the Paris Agreement of having 40% of electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030?

Today we are at 33-34% that’s pretty close to 40%. However, one of the things that I would like to stress is that India’s internal targets of achieving 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind by 2022 and then the 450 GW by 2030 will take us way beyond the 40% target...

What are the challenges in achieving our renewable energy targets?

There is a challenge. We will achieve our 40% target there is no question about it. But if we want to keep growing the challenge is the price of electricity from renewable energy round the clock has to be less than fossil fuel energy. Solar is available round the day when the sun is shining but the largest demand for electricity occurs in the evening... What is important is that cost effective storage is available well before 2030... this will happen between 2022 and 2025. Because Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) had put out tenders for round-the-clock electricity from renewable energy... This is not to say that fossil fuel-based electricity will come to zero but the additional electricity will come from renewables plus batteries.

How much of our electricity capacity is from solar and what is the growth trajectory like?

In 2015, when we pledged our goals before the UN Paris Conference, less than 5% of the electricity was from solar and wind combined. Today, solar alone is around 11% and in the years to come solar plus wind plus large hydro plus nuclear will be 40% if we are able to meet the cost curve...we are expecting a doubling of 11% from solar to 22 to 24% in 2030.

Many countries are pledging a net zero emissions goal by mid-century. Is that a feasible goal and are there foolproof intermediate plans to achieve it?

We need to be sure that technologies are available for zero CO2 in all sectors not just power... So, the question is will we have cost effective technologies by 2030? That is the only way you can be net zero by 2050...A large number of resources will have to be invested by every country to enable net zero to occur. Net zero goal is based on two assumptions: that we have technologies and they are cost effective and second, that countries are politically willing to put in resources that are needed to offset the emissions that occur even at that time...

Despite our progress in renewable energy, coal mines are being auctioned, thermal plants continue to supply a major chunk of electricity and PM Modi during his Independence Day speech said India will be a large gas based economy? Why so? Will coal continue to be a major energy source for us?

Coal will continue to be a major source of electricity for the next ten years, may be even longer... I think the goal of the auctions is to replace coal that is imported and replaced by coal produced in India. In the net, there will be no increase in the amount of coal used in India...

The latest IPCC report seems to suggest the 1.5 degree warming goal is nearly impossible. Is that goal still alive?

The 1.5 degree goal is impossible to achieve unless there is very large net extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere. We need very large CO2 sinks like large carbon capture and storage technologies or large afforestation programmes... Otherwise realistically speaking, we don’t have cost effective technologies and a huge amount of investment will be needed to meet the goal. I don’t see that kind of political appetite for such investment in almost any country in the world...