India developing green energy corridor

Will invest US$7.9 billion for this project.

India said the green energy corridor will facilitate the flow of renewable energy into its grid electricity. The corridor will be built across seven states over the next five to six years.

“The project will be implemented with the assistance of Germany which has promised to provide developmental and technical assistance of €1 billion as soft credit,” said Ratan Watal, secretary at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

The grid will also receive support from the World Bank and India’s National Electricity Fund. It aims to connect the southern grid to the national grid by 2014 to create the single largest transmission grid in the world.

India’s wind and solar capacity has more than doubled in the last five years. As of February, India had 19,564 MW of wind. Solar, the second largest source of renewable energy, had 1,208 MW of installed capacity.

Last month a joint study from Greenpeace and market analysts Bridge to India said Delhi could break the 2 GW solar power barrier by 2020 due to plummeting costs, extensive roof space and the rising demand for electricity.