‘Gargantuan task’: Why India’s renewable push will be hard

By ANUPAM NATH and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL
Associated Press

NAGAON, India (AP) — India’s renewable energy push will be far from easy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to increase non-fossil fuel capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030, but the promise is complicated by challenges such as tangled land ownership rules dating to India’s colonial past to the need to realign power systems wedded to coal for centuries. A parliamentary report called it a “gargantuan task.” No country’s demand for electricity will grow more than India’s in the next 20 years and the country needs the energy to lift millions from poverty. How India meets this demand will have an outsized impact on the world and its climate goals.