New policies, infra key to meeting 100 GW solar target: Kant

India needs to introduce policy changes, develop modern infrastructure and build large scale solar banks to achieve the ambitious target of 100 GW (1 lakh MW) of solar capacity in the next five years, a top government official said today.
Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Amitabh Kant also said the government needs to provide a stable power purchase agreement, feed and tariff.
"...If we have to crack this (1 lakh MW target), the foremost thing the country needs to do is - we need to have a clear demand certainty and certainty arise from power purchase agreement. We must ensure renewable expansion by mandating a percentage of grid supply that must be sourced from renewables," he said here at RE-Invest meet.

"There are several policy changes which need to encourage to provide renewable energy of this size (1 lakh MW), scale and speed. We need the right infrastructure. We need large scale solar banks," he added.
He said that technological barriers needs to be resolved as many assets are lying unused because the generated power is not evacuated and hence not being sold.
"We need to get the net metering infrastructure right. Many cities have net metering policies but either they are inadequate or need to put that in place. Open access smart infrastructure is not in place," he added.

Further, Kant said the government should focus on financing aspect of the solar sector.

Citing example of the US, the secretary said that American government has successfully used tax efficient trusts to provide pass through tax benefits.
"The US, Europe and China have used green bonds to lower interest rates to finance renewable energy projects. Our own attempt to implement renewable energy certificate programme needs to be made more successful," Kant said.
The adequate supply of renewable source of energy would give a huge boost to the manufacturing sector of the country, he said.
Of the country's total installed capacity of 2,58,000 MW, installed solar capacity stands at close to 3000 MW. The government aims to increase this to 100,000 MW by 2022.