India's power ministry has asked states to procure at least a quarter of their electricity needs from renewable sources in the ongoing fiscal, and scale it up to nearly half over the next eight years.
The central government issued a new trajectory of renewable purchase obligations, in an order dated July 22. It mandates that all electricity distributors procure a minimum quantity of their power requirements from renewable sources.
By 2029-30, the power ministry wants states to have at least 43.3% of their power consumption generated from renewables. It has also issued specific targets for wind and hydropower purchase obligations.
This new trajectory reflects India's climate pledge made at the COP26 Glasgow summit to have half of its power needs met through clean energy by 2030. India has committed to achieve 50 gigawatt of non-fossil fuel capacity by then.
Further, the ministry has also said that state electricity regulatory commissions can also consider notifying an RPO trajectory that is higher than the one specified by the central government.
As of FY22, the renewable power obligation specified for the states was 21%. Several states have so far failed to comply with the RPO requirements.
Besides RPOs, the power ministry has introduced energy storage obligations for states that will kick in from FY24. These will start off for solar and wind power storage and go up from 1% to 4% by FY30.
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