India’s energy and emissions outlook: results from India energy model

In this paper, using a bottom- up energy systems model, we present a modeling based approach to
understand the future development of India’s complex energy system and also look at how India’s
commitments on climate change, as outlined in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC),
which is a part of the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC, 2015), will affect its future energy and
emissions scenarios. By increasing the installed capacity of renewables to 175GW by 2022, India
will be able to surpass its NDC target of achieving 40% non-fossil capacity by 2022. With a 45%
installed capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030, power sector emissions will consequently
decline by 11% (375MtCO2) from a business-as-usual development, depicted as a baseline
scenario, and thermal generation will continue to be the major source of power supply in the
country.
This study also found that solar penetration in India is highly cost sensitive. By analyzing
alternative renewable energy technology cost developments in the future, we find that a decrease
in solar cost by 50% can increase solar penetration by more than eight times as compared to the
baseline scenario. This shows that penetration of renewable energy is highly cost elastic in the
Indian market and therefore continued policy support to promote RE is essential to achieve the
target.