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India has among the world's largest programme for deployment of renewable energy products and systems.
The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) is the only agency of it's kind in the world to finance renewable energy projects. India has a large potential for renewable energy (RE), an estimated aggregate of over 100,000MW. In addition, the scope for generating power and thermal applications using solar energy is huge. However, only a fraction of the aggregate potential in
renewable, and particularly solar energy, has been utilized so far.
The major renewable energy sources are biogas, improved cooking stoves,
biomass, solar energy, wind energy, small hydro power, energy recovery from wastes and other new and emerging technologies. About 6,400 MW (as of March 31, 2005) of renewable power generation capacity has been set up in the country.
Wind power generation alone accounts for 3595 MW of energy, small hydro projects for another 1,705 MW and Biomass , 750 MW. More than 80,000 stand alone PV systems aggregating to about 47 MW have been installed in the country so far. Three million families are covered under the biogas programme and 33 million improved cooking stoves have been deployed. It is estimated that some 5,000 entrepreneurs are involved in the biogas programme and 10,000 self-employed workers are involved in the improved cooking stove
programmes.
In 1992 the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNEs) announced a new strategy and action plan to replace subsidy-driven programmes with commercialization. Financial incentives were trimmed and fiscal incentives, such as concessional tax rates, along with soft loans, were introduced to encourage enterprise. Several renewable energy technologies (RETs) such as wind, solar thermal, solar photovoltaics (SPV) and small hydro (SHP) are now promoted on a commercial scale. Today India has the largest decentralized solar energy
programme, the second largest biogas and improved stove programmes, and the fifth largest wind power programme in the world. A substantial manufacturing base has been created in a variety of
RETs, placing India in a position not only to export technologies but also to offer technical expertise to other countries.
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