Around 70% of India’s power comes from coal, less than 1% from solar. Will that change in the next 20 years? Can solar become the new backbone of the Indian energy system? Tobias Engelmeier thinks there is a good possibility that it will and presents us with a thought experiment. India will need to grow its power generation capacity manifold over the next 20 years. Thus, a transition from a coal backbone to a solar backbone requires no shutdown of existing coal plants. The question is: what new plants will be built? On a global level, investments into renewables already outpace investments into fossil-fuel plants. This trend will accelerate and in India it might give the shining solar knight the opportunity to topple “King Coal”. This would be good news for India and great news for the global climate, which cannot be controlled unless this shift happens across all rapidly developing countries like India. Infrastructure Since India has not yet built its future electricity system, it can more easily leapfrog towards a renewables-heavy, more distributed structure … Continue reading Can solar be the backbone of India’s energy system by 2035?