NSEFI gets a new address 

Bhagwanth Khuba, Union Minister of State for New and Renewable Energy, and Chemicals and Fertilizers, recently inaugurated the National Solar Energy Federation of India’s (NSEFI) new office at Saket in New Delhi. 

The inauguration ceremony began with lamp lighting by the minister Bhagwanth Khuba, along with Pranav R. Mehta, chairman, NSEFI; Deepak Gupta, Rtd. IAS, and director-general, NSEFI; Anil Jain, chairman and managing director, Refex Group, and founder trustee NSEFI; and Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, chief executive officer, NSEFI. 

In his keynote address, Khuba said India has increased its target of installed renewable energy capacity to ‘500 GW by 2030’ from the existing ‘175 GW by 2022.’ The Indian power sector has already achieved the coveted milestone of 100 GW of installed renewable energy capacity. 

The minister highlighted the role of decentralized solar in meeting the national RE objectives. 

The industry stakeholders lauded the government initiatives to improve solar uptake. They also took the opportunity to discuss issues like lack of Discom support in the rooftop solar sector, insufficient domestic module manufacturing capacity, and uncertainty about solar module performance over a 25-year lifetime. 

The minister said the government is determined to bring in Discom reforms and ensure that a cohesive and supportive ecosystem is provided for solar, especially rooftop pv. 

“The prime minister wants all the components in the solar module supply chain to be built in India. Towards meeting that objective, the government has launched schemes to promote manufacturing within the nation. The industry must come forward to ensure the schemes are successful in achieving the objective of indigenous manufacturing and reduced import dependence,” said Khuba. 

The minister shared that the government of Karnataka has set a rooftop solar target of 10 GW within the next five years. Developers and solution providers have the opportunity to help meet the State objective. 

The minister also asked the industry to work with the best brains in India from institutes like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) on technology improvement and application. 

Also in attendance at the event were the representatives of NSEFI trustee and members including Greenko Energies, Brookfield, ReNew Power, Mahindra Susten, Amplus Energy, Sunsource Energy, IB Solar, Eden Renewables, ACME Group, Axis Energies, Ayana, and Vector Green.