Energy transition in India? Exploring the german energiewende

While the German Energy policy currently is amongst the most ambitious ones worldwide, the trend towards increased renewable energy use and enhanced energy efficiency is globally evident. As India currently prepares its low-carbon strategy its main motivation lies in fostering utilization of renewables and promoting energy efficiency as energy security measures, which in this context is defined as national-wide access to reliable, affordable and environment-friendly energy. In order to meet this challenging objective, India has initiated on implementing national missions on solar, energy efficiency and is moving ahead with plans on sectoral missions for wind and biogas energy as well.

 

Experience sharing from the German energy policy toolkit and operation experience could provide insights and eventually assist India to successfully implement these missions and help the tropical subcontinent use its large renewables potential. India could apply conclusions from the Energiewende for leapfrogging the fossil-fuel

systems by accelerating the renewable pathway. This paper briefly introduces the Energiewende and the Indian energy landscape as well as it presents the result in terms of take-aways of five Roundtable Discussions held in Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad and Delhi in February and March 2014.