Renewable Energy India

India is one of the largest countries in the world and the second biggest population. Alongside China it will soon be consuming half of the world’s electricity. Although it is making advances towards renewable energy, India still lags behind other emerging countries such as Brazil, where hydropower and ethanol account for a significant share of the country’s energy mix.

Despite the lack of progress, in the early 1980s India was the first country in the world to set up a ministry dedicated to developing alternative energy resources. As at March 2011, renewable energy accounted for 10.63% of the energy sector of the country, according to Wikipedia.

Renewable energy is overseen by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy India. The organization is responsible for R&D, intellectual property protection and international cooperation, promotion and coordination in renewable energy sources including wind, biogas, hydro and solar power. It is headquartered in New Delhi.

In September 2011 the Ministry announced that India expected investments of $6.5bn in alternative energy projects in the financial year between 2011 and 2012. The country expected to add 3,400 MW of grid-tied and 130 MW off-grid generation capacity. Most of the money will go to wind, solar and small hydro projects. A small fraction of it (around 3 per cent) will go to biogas plants and solar thermal systems in isolated villages.