A power ministry official on Wednesday said that the country can potentially achieve the 500 gigawatt (GW) non fossil fuel capacity before its stated deadline of 2030.

Speaking at a CII organised event, Ghanshyam Prasad, joint secretary in the ministry of power, said the country has already achieved a 40 per cent non-fossil fuel installed capacity last month, nine years ahead of its stated target.

According to a statement from the Union ministry of new and renewable energy, total non-fossil fuel based installed energy capacity was 156.83 GW, which is 40.1 per cent of the total installed electricity generation capacity of 390.8 GW. A target of 500 GW has now been set to be achieved by 2030. “We will be able to achieve this target as well probably before 2030,” said Prasad.

The government has recently issued revised guidelines to thermal power generating companies to set up renewable capacities either by themselves or through developers and supply power to customers with existing power purchase agreements (PPAs).

This will enable replacement of fossil fuels under existing PPAs. Moreover, the distribution companies will also be allowed to count the renewable energy supplied under the scheme towards renewable power purchase obligation according to a power ministry statement.

Prasad also said that the ministry is working on guidelines on resource adequacy that will allow better contingency planning in peak power months.

“What consumers need is 24 by 7 electricity and quality power. This can be ensured if discoms have a proper tool to have resource adequacy plans in place. Some of the private discoms are doing this but I am not sure about other discoms,” he said.

Abhay Bakre, director general, Bureau of Energy Efficiency said that with 1 million square meters of commercial space and 3 million square meters of residential space coming up in the next few years, there would be a significant jump in the peak load of discoms due to cooling needs.