The Renewable Energy Policy Dilemma in India: Should Renewable Energy Certificate mechanism compete or merge with the Feed-in-Tariff Scheme?
Sushanta K Chatterjee
2017
Introduction
India has taken a giant stride in its endeavor to mitigate energy security concerns by announcing an ambitious target of 175 GW of renewable energy (RE) capacity by 2022 – ambitious in that it implies five-fold increase in RE capacity vis a vis year 2015 when the policy announcement was made. Several policy instruments have been tried to promote renewable energy resources in India, for instance, renewable purchase obligation (RPO), regulated fixed contract Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) and the market-based Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) mechanism. The instruments of FIT and REC are mutually exclusive to each other, in that an investor can choose either the FIT or REC route for investment. A buyer, on the other hand, can meet renewable purchase obligation by either or both of these two policy instruments.