India Set To Meet 2030 Clean Energy Target Despite Hurdles: Suzlon Energy CEO

India is on track to achieve the ambitious target of 500 GW renewable energy by 2030, despite the hurdles, according to Suzlon Energy’s Chief Executive Officer, JP Chalasani.

The slowdown in power purchase agreements (PPAs) and quarterly performance of industry players could be a temporary trend and it won’t affect the sector in the long run, the CEO said in an interaction with NDTV Profit.

On capacity building, he added that India’s goal of 100 GW wind energy by 2030 requires a run rate of 10 GW per year, but current progress suggests reaching 7 GW per year in the coming years.

“The question everybody needs to ask is today we are running at 3.54 GW; for example, this year till about Feb. we did about 2.7 GW, might touch between 3.5 GW to 4 GW, and what level do we reach? Do we reach 7 GW? Do we reach somewhere close by starting range? There are different estimates of what is going to happen," said Chalasani.

Chalasani emphasised that "temporary blips" in quarterly performance aren't a major concern in the long run, with consistency being the key focus over time.

“In my opinion, we give guidance here also; we think it will be between 80-90 GW, which we will be able to reach, but 2030 is not a full stop; it is a comma. We still have targets till 2032; we have targets till 2047. This will continue. The only thing is to ramp up, maintain consistency, and the wind sector will continue to grow for the next couple of decades. I have no doubts about it because the country needs that power, not just the wind, the power needed (unclear). There could be temporary blips here and there; there could be temporary frustrations. People keep saying things are not moving, but on a long-term basis, I don’t see any concern,” he said.

Suzlon Energy has an installed capacity of over 20,940 MW worldwide and has installed more than 13,070 wind turbine generators.

Chalasani said that offshore wind energy is a long-term goal for the company, but for the next 5 years, the focus remains on the onshore wind turbine business. The company has plans to shift to offshore wind generation from 2030 onwards.

Responding to a question on the company’s order book, he said, “Our current order book has become like a one-day match. Depending on what time you are talking, the score keeps changing. As we speak, I think our score got changed to around 200 MW. At any point in time, the order book, which we will have a backlog for, will have a time schedule of 18-24 months, because that is the time schedule for most of the contracts we have.

Commenting on the company’s expansion plans and growth prospects, he said that the renewable energy firm’s primary aim is to not increase its market share but to deliver 80% to 90% of its manufacturing capacity.

 “When we look at the Indian market, for us it looks great. We have increased our manufacturing capacity to 4.5 GW, which we can further increase. Our aim should not be the market share but can we deliver 80% to 90% of our manufacturing capacity,” he said.

“The geographical expansion with the least risk could be one of the possibilities for evaluation at least; we are not saying we are going to do it. There is good potential outside today; we are looking at each market, evaluating each market, whether it is the US, or Europe, or neighbouring countries; it looks very exciting,” the top executive said.

Suzlon Energy shares were trading 2.27% higher at 51.25% as of 1:45 p.m., compared with a 1.05% rise in Nifty 50.