'Renewable industry policy needed to achieve target'

India needs to have state-level renewable energy policies to achieve the national target of 175 GW by 2022, a report said on Friday.

"The ecosystem of Renewable Energy in India is still fraught with constraints,in particular with respect to state policies," said Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in its report 'State Renewable Energy Policies: A Comparative Study', with special focus on northern states, released at the 4th CII Renewable Energy Summit held here.

"Even though most of the northern states have come up with their Renewable Energy Policies, but it is important to understand and imbibe the best incentives and practices depending on the need of the State/region," it added.

The industry chamber's Northern Region Chairman Sumant Sinha said: "Falling cost of renewable energy, especially on the solar front, is giving a tough competition to other sources of energy. However, availability of grid infrastructure remains a challenge.

"There is also a need to build a competitive domestic solar manufacturing capacity within the country."

Ratul Puri of Hindustan Power Projects said that the government has over the last two and half years taken several policy measures to ensure rapid capacity addition from mere 32 GW in 2014 to 175 GW by 2022 from new and renewable energy resources.

During the events, speakers also discussed challenges such as financial health of DISCOMs, outdated grid infrastructure and fragmented solar component manufacturing.

--IANS

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