Climate Change

The Bengaluru-headquartered IT major has become carbon neutral for FY2020 across all emissions, 30 years ahead of the Paris Agreement’s 2050 timeline. The company reduced its energy consumption significantly with energy-efficiency measures, green buildings, renewable energy use, and carbon offset projects in the community to achieve this goal.

The new billion-dollar investment is aimed at scaling distributed renewable energy across developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The government is trying to harness renewables to increase domestic output but will need a more liberal energy market and to consider the structure of procurement auctions, cloying red tape and the financial travails of state utilities if it is to achieve its goals, says Rakshika Kaul of Amp Energy India.

With a huge market and relevant manufacturing advantages, the country aspires to become a giga-scale manufacturing destination for the breakthrough PV technologies across the value chain.

Heavy industry players Dalmia Cement (Bharat) and Hindalco are among the companies committed to enhancing energy efficiency, renewable energy, and circular economy across their member companies and supply chains. Other signatories included Siemens Energy India, Thermax, Shell Group of Companies India and Tata Consulting Engineers.

Cost savings associated with switching to least-cost energy solutions like wind and solar can be redeployed for economic recovery. At the same time, building resilience on fronts like energy system design and supply-chain management is crucial to deal with unexpected shocks and crises.

The country—aiming for a renewable power target of 450 GW by 2030—has emerged as the world’s largest and most competitive clean energy auction market. 

The new Indo-Danish cooperation will prepare the Indian energy system for the integration of 450 GW renewable energy by 2030. It will focus on knowledge exchange in areas such as energy planning and scenario modelling, integration of high share of renewable energy, power system flexibility and electricity markets.

That’s a significant feat for the country which has pledged to bring down the energy intensity of the economy by 33 to 35% compared to 2005 levels by 2030.

The Climate Investment Platform launched by three multilateral bodies in September is now open for business and renewables companies in developing nations across 14 regions including south Asia could qualify for help with clean energy facilities, renewables-related grid improvements and energy efficiency schemes.