On Tuesday, Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stated that the country had set a target for 50% of its state-owned fuel retails to be operated by solar power within five years under the government’s green energy drive.
Three state-fuel retailers, Indian Oil Corp., Hindustan Petroleum Corp., and Bharat Petroleum have been moving to deploy solar panels across their operations. The three companies operate roughly 63,150 fuel stations all over the country.
Currently, according to Pradhan, the companies have installed a combined 270 MW of solar power capacity and will add 60 MW more capacity in 2021.
India imports over 80% of its solar cell and module need from China but nowadays, firms have shown interest in establishing new manufacturing capacity in India amounting to 10 GW of solar power equipment. The domestic manufacturers have been struggling to compete with cheap Chinese modules.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the companies to procure most of their equipment from the local industry to boost the country’s battered economy.
India aims to have a renewable energy capacity of 175 GW by 2022 that would include 100 GW of solar capacity, up from the current 35 GW.
