India ties solar plans to global climate support

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Financial help

Developing countries such as India refuse to accept binding emission cut targets and argue they need to keep burning fossil fuel to lift millions of their population out of poverty.

About 56% of India's 1.1-billion plus population has no access to electricity.

The final solar document makes no mention of the total required investment and gives no detail of how money would be raised to fund the ambitious three-phase plan. Earlier drafts made no mention of international assistance.

The final plan also lowers the initial target mentioned in draft documents from 1-1.5 GW by 2012 to 1 GW by 2017, depending on availability of international finance and technology.

"The ambitious target for 2022 of 20,000 Megawatts (MW) or more will be dependent on the enhanced and enabled international finance and technology," the document said.

The strategy, it said, had two main objectives: "to scale up deployment of solar energy and to do this keeping in mind the financial constraints and affordability challenge in a country where large numbers of people still have no access to basic power and are poor and unable to pay for high cost solutions".

The plan says money would be spent on incentives for production and installation as well research and development, and it offers financial incentives and tax holidays for utilities.

The solar mission also outlines a system of paying households for any surplus power from solar panels fed back into the grid.

If implemented, solar power would be equivalent to one-eighth of India's current installed power base, helping the world's fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions limit reliance on coal and easing the power deficit that has crimped its growth.