India gets $386 bn funding for RE target; RIL, Adani pledge commitments

Reliance and Adani, India's two biggest conglomerates, and other firms committed to help the country reach its goal of 500 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy by 2030, while financial companies vowed $386 billion in funding, the renewable energy minister said on Monday.

"We received overwhelming commitments from states and Union Territories as well as from the developers, manufacturers and financial institutes to support our goal of 500 GW by 2030", Pralhad Joshi said during the annual Renewable Energy Investor's Meet and Expo.

India added slightly more than 18 GW of renewable energy capacity in fiscal 2024, compared with 15.3 GW a year earlier, taking its total to 153 GW.

The government also received an additional 570 GW of power generation commitments, while manufacturers committed additional capacities of 340 GW in solar modules and 240 GW in solar cells, the minister said.

Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries committed 100 GW of additional renewable capacity, while Adani Green Energy committed 38.8 GW of capacity.

Analysts expect India's renewable energy capacity addition to likely scale up to 25 GW in 2024-25 from more than 18 GW for the prior period.

Heatwaves and rising economic activity increased India's electricity generation, on average, by about 8% annually following the pandemic.

Due to increasing power demand, India expects coal-fired power output to rise 8.9% over 2024-25, outpacing a growth of 8.2% projected for renewable energy output, which includes solar, wind, small hydro plants and power from biomass.