Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah says, India is committed to increasing the share of renewable power in the electricity mix to 15 per cent by 2020. Dr. Abdullah was addressing a gathering at the Institute of International and European Affairs, IIEA in Dublin in Ireland. He said an action plan has already been chalked out to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy with a target of around 30 giga watt, GW, of renewable power by 2017.

Stating that with a present installed capacity of over 25 GW of grid-connected power, India today stands among the top five countries of the world in terms of renewable energy capacity. He said renewable power represents about 12 per cent of total installed electricity generation capacity in India.

He said around 1.1 million Indian households are already using solar energy to meet their lighting energy needs.