In a significant move, five PSU’s in India’s hydrocarbon sector have joined ISA’s Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action (ISA-CSCA) and pledge US$ 5 million as corporate partners. The development coincides with the fact that half of India’s PSU owned fuel stations will be solar powered in five years, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reiterated India’s commitment to renewable energy in spite of the lowest per capita carbon emission in the world.
A tripartite agreement has also been signed among India’s New and Renewable Energy Ministry, the World Bank and the International Solar Alliance (ISA) on ‘One Sun, One World, and One Grid’ during the first World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS) held recently virtually to discuss how to accelerate the adoption of affordable and sustainable clean green energy across the world.
India has committed the entire hydrocarbon will support the deployment and increased promotion of solar energy and announced that five PSUs under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will be joining ISA’s Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action (ISA-CSCA) as corporate partners and will be contributing to ISA’s Corpus Fund.
The CSCA is a consortium of public and private entities working in the direction of Universal Energy Access and meeting climate targets. A recent initiative, it brings together energy or non-energy-based companies joining ISA as Corporate Partners. A company, irrespective of its core business area, is welcome to join this Coalition by first becoming a Corporate Partner of ISA. Each partner has pledged US$ 1 million to join the coalition.
With this commitment from the five PSUs, ONGC, IOCL, BPCL, Hindustan Petroleum and GAIL, ISA will have a corpus fund of US$17 million. It is also expected that seven more partners will join in October during the Assembly.
According to Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, in order to reduce carbon footprints, Indian oil and gas companies will be focused more on green energy investments such as renewable, biofuel, and hydrogen energy going forward. The oil and gas PSU are increasingly evaluating new opportunities in the solar and renewable energy (RE) space with diversification.
Indian oil and gas companies are making efforts to deploy solar panels across the value chain of their operation. The current installed capacity is 270 MW and an additional 60MW will be added in the coming years. “We have taken up the mission of solarising 50 per cent of the fuel stations owned by the PSU companies in the next five years. More than 5000 fuel stations of Indian Oil were solarised last year,” said Pradhan.
