India needs energy, in fact far more than it currently produces. Around a tenth of today's energy requirements are not met. And that at a time when the economy and population are expanding. The huge power outage in July 2012, during which over 600 million people – a tenth of the world's population – were forced to manage without electricity for hours, illustrates in a very dramatic way something which is a daily problem in India. At the same time, the Indian energy sector is an enormous burden on the environment and climate. Around two thirds of energy comes from fossil fuels, especially coal. The majority of the power stations are also outdated, inefficient and emit a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
To bridge these energy gaps, and at the same time enable further climate-friendly growth, the Indian government has begun to increase significantly its investments in renewable energies. By 2022, an additional 175,000 MW of energy are to be generated by biomass, solar and wind sources. The Indo-German Solar Partnership which was agreed between President Narendra Modi and Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015 shall contribute to this by providing investments of one billion Euros for solar parks and rooftop solar generation. To facilitate the integration of renewable energies into the power grid, KfW is further supporting the connection of solar, wind and hydropower generation facilities to the Indian grid. Iin this endeavour KfW provides concessionary financing of more than one billion euros for the Indo-German flagship project "Green Energy Corridors". To also reduce the power consumption, it is supporting Indian companies and households to increase energy efficiency in production processes and in residential buildings, and to reduce power losses.
Project example - Solar power