Gautam Adani sees COVID-19 as opportunity for faster transition to clean energy
29/05/2020
MUMBAI, MAY 28: Billionaire Gautam Adani on Thursday said COVID-19 had an immediate economic impact but the pandemic presents an opportunity to design a new and faster transition to a low-carbon future as he expects the price of solar modules to drop further."While the immediate economic impact may slow us down, we are presented with an opportunity to pause, rethink, and design a new and faster transition to a low-carbon future," he said.In January, Adani had said that his group is aiming to become the world's largest solar power company by 2025 and the biggest renewable energy firm by 2030.
Its existing portfolio of renewable power generating assets stood at over 2.5 GW. This is expected to more than double by 2020, with the implementation of 2.9 GW under construction capacity and would further touch 18 GW by 2025 The head of India's biggest infrastructure conglomerate Adani Group on Thursday said many of the system operators in Europe, faced with falling demand, are learning to manage grids at a remarkably high level of renewables in the energy mix, often up to 70 per cent.
This learning is invaluable as such a scenario was unlikely only a few months ago. "While the generation balance may swing back as demand increases, the crisis has provided insights to operators on keeping the grid stable with high levels of renewable penetration. Post COVID-19, this may be the new norm," he said.
Adani said the price of solar modules has dropped 99 per cent over the past 40 years."Given what I see, I expect prices to drop by an additional 99 per cent over the next 40 years – probably reducing the marginal cost of electricity to zero. Such a reduction, in turn, will mean the coexistence of two business models – one based on fossil fuels and the other driven by renewables – both supplementing each other in the near future but the pendulum swinging decidedly in favour of renewables in the long-term," he said.
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