CERA Week: India's energy investments to touch $150 billion per year in next ten years, says IEA

Representative image.

India's energy sector investments are set to more than double from $70-80 billion per year now to around $150 billion within ten years, a top executive of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

Addressing the CERA Week energy summit by IHS Markit on March 4, Tim Gould, Head Of Division, Energy Supply And Investment Outlooks of IEA, said: "In recent years, India saw energy investments of around $70-80 billion annually. Within ten years, it should at least double or be in the range of $150 billion per year."

India has lined up massive investment plants in renewables, creating a gas-based economy and also expanding its refinery sector to meet the growing demand.

Amitabh Kant, chief executive officer of Niti Aayog, said India will be having 500 new cities in the next five decades and the energy demand of the country is expected to double in the next 15 years.

"We have a collaborative public-private approach towards energy. I believe that the future lies in green hydrogen because India's solar tariffs are as low as $0.03 kilowatt per hour. This would bring the cost of hydrogen to the lowest level," Kant said. One of the major initiatives for the clean energy sector that the government announced in the Union Budget 2021 was the plan to launch a National Hydrogen Mission.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) may come out with a draft on the mission in the next two months. Companies such as Indian Oil Corporation and NTPC are working towards operating more hydrogen-run buses in the country.