At a high level gathering of US companies in the renewable energy development and financing sector, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII ) in partnership with the American Council on a Renewable Energy (ACORE) yesterday in Washington, D.C. , Shri Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and Renewable Energy addressed the concerns and challenges faced by investors in India. He also laid out the NDA government's vision for getting to the ambitious target of 175 GW of clean energy by 2022.In particular, Shri Goyal addressed concerns relating to the fiscal health of distribution companies in India and mentioned that the government was looking for a long term and sustainable solution to the issue which will be implemented soon. He also tackled the issue of the rupee's stability by pointing out that the Indian rupee has never depreciated more than 3.5% CAGR in 25 years. In addition he mentioned that a number of stalled projects are being cleared.
While acknowledging constraining factors, the Minister urged the United States and it's constituent companies to be a partner in this process and to help come up with innovative solutions so as to not miss out on the tremendous opportunity in India which is set to become the largest clean energy market in the next 10 years.Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII praised the NDA government's efforts in scaling up the clean energy sector and said that "Indian industry stands ready to partner and work with the government to achieve the ambitious target set by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi". Mr Sumant Sinha, Chairman and CEO, Renew a Power Ventures pointed out that "$150 million of financing is required in the clean energy space of which $100 million will be debt and $50 million will be equity. The US can play a big role in this space in India."
The US companies that attended the meeting included SunEdison, Bank of America, First Solar, Credit Suisse, Apex clean energy, Sun Power, Deutsche Bank etc. A high powered CII CEOs delegation also participated, including Dr Preetha Reddy, Apollo Hospitals; Ms Kiran Mazumdar Shah, Biocon; Shiv Khemka, Sun Group; Mr Rajan Navani, Jetline Group; Pranav Tanti,Suzlon; Rahul Munjal, Hero Future Energies; Mr. Kishore Nair, Welspun Energy.The meeting came just before the US-India Energy Dialogue and the US-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue which are further expected to help boost the bilateral partnership days before the Prime Minister’s much anticipated second visit to the US at the end of the week. To mark the occasion, CII and ACORE signed a Memorandum of Understanding to help solidify and bolster cooperation in the clean energy sector through facilitation of dialogues between industry experts, the development of platforms to deepen cooperation as well as platforms to exchange policy recommendations and best practices.