Government looking at 100,000 MW solar power by 2022

The government is working at revising the solar power generation target to 100,000 MW for 2022 from the current 20,000 MW, Power and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal said Monday.

"We have reset the targets of renewable energy. The earlier target for solar energy was 20,000 MW till 2022, which we are trying to reset to 100,000 MW," he said at an event here organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) University

"On the solar front, we believe there is enormous potential to take it to 100,000 MW in the next 5-7 years," he added.

The minister said the government is working to make solar projects viable by providing grid parity, making it economically viable and ensuring that bankability and returns are reasonably assured.

"The three major challenges when I came into office were in the areas of grid parity, reducing project financing costs by seeing how interest rates can go down, and ensuring bankability", Goyal said.

"In short, we are trying to make it self-sustaining", he added, in order to help it realise the revised target of 100,000 MW from renewable sources.