“By the time the coal-fired plants come up to full capacity<br />because of increasing demand, the price of renewables will be lower than the price of coal.”<br />Based on December data from the Central Electric Authority, Mr. Mathur’s institute reported in March<br />that India might be able to meet its additional power needs in the future with renewable energy.<br />Experts now say that India not only has no need of any new coal-fired plants for at least a decade, given<br />that existing plants are running below 60 percent of capacity, but that after that it could rely on renewable sources for all its additional power needs.<br />Mr. Trump has come too late” to slow the transition to renewable energy, said Ajay Mathur, director general<br />of the Energy Resources Institute, a New Delhi policy center closely associated with the government.<br />The price needs to fall to $100 per kilowatt-hour for renewable energy to be comparable in price to coal, Mr. Mathur says.<br />In approving proposals for new solar power plants, the Indian government seeks bids from prospective<br />builders who compete to pledge the lowest price at which they anticipate selling power.<br />Besides reducing the choking pollution in India’s cities, moving to electric vehicles also makes sense because the country has excess generation capacity in the underused coal-fired plants<br />and is too heavily reliant on petroleum imports, which present a geopolitical risk.
