India to depend on renewable sources to meet energy needs

Apr 09, 2007 - Asia Pulse Data Source

New Delhi, India will be dependent on renewable sources such as solar, hydro and biofuels to meet 50 per cent of its energy requirements by 2050.

Through the use efficiency measures the country will also be able to reduce 50 per cent of its energy consumption.

In an outlook commissioned by Greenpeace and European Renewable Energy Council and assembled by German research firm DLR Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, it was revealed that developing countries like China, India, Brazil and South America need to play a key role in combating climate change.

"Assuming an average growth of 3.9 per cent for the following decades, a blueprint has been developed that reduces CO2 emissions by four per cent, thus decoupling economic growth and fossil fuel consumption," the outlook said.

However, Greenpeace Executive Director G Ananthapadmanabhan said coal would have to be phased out if the climate change has to be contained.

"It is a clear that coal has to go. There is no such thing as clean coal, it is always dirty. We must start thinking beyond coal," he said adding that the government needs to form a dedicated renewable energy policy.

"We are asking government to shift all incentives and subsidies for coal to renewable energy," Greenpeace Team leader - Climate and Energy Campaign K Srinivas said.

Greenpeace is asking the Centre to ban, by 2010, any equipment that takes 25 lumens per watt, those using 35 lumens by 2012 and 55 lumens by 2015.

"The electricity mix needs to be gradually increased from the current four per cent to 10 per cent by 2010, 20 per cent by 2020 and 65 per cent by 2050," Srinivas said.