Prime Minister Narendra Modi called upon energy industry stakeholders to invest in green initiatives and added that the country’s 2023 budget provided opportunities to the investors looking to diversify energy supply chain.

The Prime Minister was addressing the investors virtually at the Green Growth webinar to seek ideas for implementing the green initiatives announced in the Union Budget recently.

“This Budget will play a key role in establishing India as a lead player in the global green energy market. That is why, today, I invite every stakeholder of the energy world to invest in India”, Modi said.

The Prime Minister stressed on India’s abundant agricultural waste which is critical to biogas, a potential source for the country’s private sector. He said “The private sector is getting attractive incentives for producing CBG from agri-waste and municipal solid waste.”

“Because of these possibilities, today the Gobardhan Yojana is an important component of India’s biofuel strategy. In this budget, the government has announced plans to set up 500 new plants under the Gobardhan Yojana. These are not like old-fashioned plants. The government will spend ₹100 billion (~$1.2 billion) on these modern plants,” Modi said.

He said that the vehicle scrapping policy for cities, green hydrogen, and wetland conservation schemes introduced in this year’s budget pave the way for future generations.

Under the vehicle scrapping policy, the government is following the principle of reuse, recycle, and recovery and has made provisions of ₹30 billion (~$363 million) in this year’s budget to scrap around 300,000 Central and State government-owned vehicles.

Vehicles that are older than 15 years including police vehicles, ambulances and buses will be scrapped under the policy.

The Prime Minister highlighted that battery storage would play a crucial role in the power sector and added that the country’s battery storage capacity much reach 125 GWh in the next 6-7 years.

A Wartsile-KPMG study indicated that by 2030, India would need 38 GW of four-hour battery storage and 9 GW of thermal balancing power project for the cost-efficient and reliable integration of 450 GW of renewables.