NEW DELHI: India will need at least $125 billion to fund its ambitious plan to increase the share of renewable power supply in the country’s grid by 2022, a top government official told Reuters, underlining the immense financing challenge ahead.
The South Asian nation is one of the world’s most important growth markets for renewable energy. Millions of Indians are not yet linked up to the power grid but as the country of more than a billion people prospers, it is experiencing surging demand.
To put India’s $125 billion requirement in context, global corporate funding for the solar industry — the world’s fastest-growing electricity source – was a tenth of that amount in 2017 at $12.8 billion, research firm Mercom says.
In 2015, India said investment of $100 billion in the seven years to 2022 would be needed to meet its renewable energy goals.
Installed renewable power capacity is currently about 60 gigawats (GW), and India plans to complete the bidding process by the end of 2019/20 to add a further 115 GW of installed renewable energy capacity by 2022.
To do that, Anand Kumar, secretary at the ministry of new and renewable energy, said investment of at least $125 billion would be needed.
India, which receives twice as much sunshine as European countries, wants to make solar central to its renewable expansion. It expects renewable energy to make up 40 percent of installed power capacity by 2030, compared with 18.2 percent at the end of 2017.
Kumar said that $125 billion was a “conservative estimate” and foreign capital would be central to achieving the goal.
Private equity firms, US banks including Goldman Sachs , JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, and European utilities EDF and Engie are already investors or lenders in India’s renewable energy sector.
India will also require support from development banks, like the World Bank, Kumar said.
IREDA , a state-run financier for renewable energy, raised $300 million by selling rupee-denominated bonds, known as masala bonds, in the United Kingdom last year. The bonds were subscribed 1.7 times.
“We are also looking to raise another $500 million through IREDA through masala bonds early next financial year,” he said.
NOT ENOUGH
Most of the financing for India’s renewables drive so far has come from domestic banks, industry experts say, raising doubts about the level of support that can be expected from overseas investors.
Market consultant Jasmeet Khurana said Indian banks would have to account for the lion’s share of new renewable investments in the future.
“It is an uphill task, but Indian banks can find the appetite to fund these projects,” Khurana said.
Another challenge in achieving India’s renewable targets is the government’s “Make in India” initiative.
To protect itself from cheap solar panel imports, India’s directorate general of safeguards, an arm of the finance ministry, has proposed a 70 percent duty on imports of solar equipment from some countries including China, which so far provides the vast majority of India’s solar panels.
Kumar said “a duty at this stage could hamper our growth situation,” and “a realistic view” will be taken in consultation with other stakeholders.
The government was working on developing energy storage technologies and hydrogen-fuel cells and other batteries, he said.
“Renewables are the future. The only weak link is storage, and the day you crack storage, there is no looking back for renewables.”
India will need ‘at least $125bn’ to fund renewables dream, says official
India will need ‘at least $125bn’ to fund renewables dream, says official
FBI says arson suspect targeted Mississippi synagogue because it’s a Jewish house of worship
JACKSON, Mississippi: A suspect in an arson fire at a synagogue that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan decades ago admitted to targeting the historic institution because it’s a Jewish house of worship and confessed what he had done to his father, who turned him in to authorities after observing burn marks on his son’s ankles, hands and face, the FBI said Monday.
Stephen Pittman was charged with maliciously damaging or destroying a building by means of fire or an explosive. The 19-year-old suspect confessed to lighting a fire inside the building, which he referred to as “the synagogue of Satan,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in US District Court in Mississippi on Monday.
At a first appearance hearing Monday in federal court, a public defender was appointed for Pittman, who attended via video conference call from a hospital bed. Both of his hands were visibly bandaged. He told the judge that he was a high school graduate and had three semesters of college.
Prosecutors said he could face five to 20 years in prison if convicted. When the judge read him his rights, Pittman said, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
A crime captured on video
The fire ripped through the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson shortly after 3 a.m. on Saturday. No congregants or firefighters were injured. Security camera video released Monday by the synagogue showed a masked and hooded man using a gas can to pour liquid on the floor and a couch in the building’s lobby.
The weekend fire badly damaged the 165-year-old synagogue’s library and administrative offices. Five Torahs — the sacred scrolls with the text of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible — located inside the sanctuary were being assessed for smoke damage. Two Torahs inside the library, where the most severe damage was done, were destroyed. One Torah that survived the Holocaust was behind glass and was not damaged in the fire, according to the congregation.
The suspect’s father contacted the FBI and said his son had confessed to setting the building on fire. Pittman had texted his father a photo of the rear of the synagogue before the fire, with the message, “There’s a furnace in the back.” His father had pleaded with his son to return home, but “Pittman replied back by saying he was due for a homerun and ‘I did my research,’” the affidavit said.
During an interview with investigators, Pittman said he had stopped at a gas station on his way to the synagogue to purchase the gas used in the fire. He also took the license plate off his vehicle at the gas station. He used an ax to break out a window of the synagogue, poured gas inside and used a torch lighter to start the fire, the FBI affidavit said.
The FBI later recovered a burned cellphone believed to be Pittman’s and took possession of a hand torch that a congregant had found.
A congregation determined to rebuild
Yellow police tape on Monday blocked off the entrances to the synagogue building, which was surrounded by broken glass and soot. Bouquets of flowers were laid on the ground at the building’s entrance — including one with a note that said, “I’m so very sorry.”
The congregation’s president, Zach Shemper, has vowed to rebuild the synagogue and said several churches had offered their spaces for worship during the rebuilding process. Shemper attended Pittman’s court appearance Monday but didn’t comment afterward.
With just several hundred people in the community, it has never been particularly easy being Jewish in Mississippi’s capital city, but members of Beth Israel have taken special pride in keeping their traditions alive in the heart of the Deep South.
Nearly every aspect of Jewish life in Jackson could be found under Beth Israel’s roof. The midcentury modern building not only housed the congregation but also the Jewish Federation, a nonprofit provider of social services and philanthropy that is the hub of Jewish society in most US cities. The building also is home to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which provides resources to Jewish communities in 13 southern states. A Holocaust memorial was outdoors behind the synagogue building.
Because Jewish children throughout the South have attended summer camp for decades in Utica, Mississippi, about 30 miles southwest of Jackson, many retain a fond connection to the state and its Jewish community.
“Jackson is the capital city, and that synagogue is the capital synagogue in Mississippi,” said Rabbi Gary Zola, a historian of American Jewry who taught at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. “I would call it the flagship, though when we talk about places like New York and Los Angeles, it probably seems like Hicksville.”
A rabbi who stood up to the KKK
Beth Israel as a congregation was founded in 1860 and acquired its first property, where it built Mississippi’s first synagogue, after the Civil War. In 1967, the synagogue moved to its current location.
It was bombed by local KKK members not long after relocating, and then two months after that, the home of the synagogue’s leader, Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, was bombed because of his outspoken opposition to segregation and racism.
At a time when opposition to racial segregation could be dangerous in the Deep South, many Beth Israel congregants hoped the rabbi would just stay quiet, but Nussbaum was unshakable in believing he was doing the right thing by supporting civil rights, Zola said.
“He had this strong, strong sense of justice,” Zola said.
