How important is it to move from non-renewable to renewable forms of energy?
We need to mainstream renewable forms of energy so as to ensure that they can substantially displace oil, gas and coal. We have a wide range of renewable energy forms, many of which are being used extensively in areas such as street signalling, remote area power supply, and in village homes. The story of wind power is instructive. Thirty-five years ago, when the world began to look at wind power, it needed a great deal of government support and subsidy. In the late-’90s, when the global capacity of wind energy was increased to 65,000 megawatts, it became competitive with coal. India could gain substantially from harnessing solar energy. When do you see it becoming commercially viable? Yes, solar PVs are still not commercially competitive. A lot of research and development is being done in this area in order to bring costs down. Once there is a strong government commitment towards research and development, matched by strong policy and regulation and increasing scales of technology, the
