Getting the capital component right will be key in expanding the renewable energy space to the scale required to meet the climate goals and multilateral institutions and political leaderships will have to play a key role in facilitating trillions of dollars required the world over, leaders said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting here, ReNew Power chief Sumant Sinha said the reality is we all are in the midst of this massive climate change and it is not just true for us, or India but the entire world. "We may not be in a position to match the existing traditional energy space size very soon, but this is the time we start pushing forward… Ours is a very, very capital-intensive business we cannot do much without a huge amount of equity as well as debt financing," he added.
"We need to do things that has massive capital needs and for that, apart from government policies, we need capital and for capital we need to offer right kinds of returns to the investors," said Sinha, Chairman and CEO of India's leading renewable power firm ReNew Power. Another panellist said what is required is a full ecosystem for achieving the climate goals and the speed at which things are moving is not good enough.
Panellists also talked about the cost of capital being unequal in different parts of the world. "Earlier we were mining for fuel but now the fuel is available everywhere because sun rises everywhere, wind blows everywhere. Every country has got the fuel now.
"So what is required is to get the capital equipment part right. So in India also, the thinking is that if we get the capital part right, then we can become a renewable superpower. It is a massive opportunity which India is definitely trying to take up," Sinha said. "We will need trillions of dollars across the world and the key to achieve that would be the role of multilateral institutions. That is not moving at a speed required as of now and for that the political leaderships can play an important role by conveying to the multilateral lending and financing institutions," he added.
Sinha also said the Ukraine crisis has created a situation of confusion as Europe is trying to decouple from Russia but we do not know as yet where are the alternative energy sources. "But time is running out to expand the renewable energy space and for that all will need to come together, including the companies and government and policymakers and consumers. At the same time, most of the heavy lifting would need to be done by the governments," he added.
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