Renewable energy systems have proved to be land intensive, says Ansari

Inaugurating the India Energy Conference, Ansari said though the government has ambitious programmes underway to utilise renewable energy and has announced the New and Renewable Energy Policy 2005 and the National Policy on Bio-fuels that aims to raise blending of bio fuels with petrol and diesel to 20% by the year 2017, the country might not be able to provide the vast tracts of land that would be required for the purpose.

Stressing that many renewable projects already face the problem in transporting the energy from areas of production to areas of consumption, the Vice-President said the government would have to find “innovative ways of either redesigning the current electricity grid networks or commission renewable energy systems in stand-alone mode and independent of the national grid.”

At present, renewable energy accounts for 6.8% of primary energy consumption with hydroelectric power being the principle component. According to the International Energy Outlook 2008, most of the growth in renewable energy consumption in developing countries over the next 25 years is expected to come from hydropower. In the case of India, this would require new approaches to regional cooperation, Ansari said.

Referring to the

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