Solar Plan Could Revolutionize India's Energy Sector

clipped from www.worldwatch.org A leaked early version of the Indian Government's national solar energy plan indicates that India may be thinking more ambitiously about a "clean energy" roadmap than was previously anticipated. The draft strategy, first published in The Hindu, outlines plans for a national target of 200,000 megawatts of solar generation capacity by 2050. This is 1.3 times India's current installed power generation capacity of 150,000 megawatts across all energy sectors. Although the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change is yet to approve the plan, and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has not confirmed the claim, this possibility raises important questions for India's energy future, namely: Could a large-scale transition to solar power and other renewables be economically and technically possible? And if so, what would it take?