The Deutsche Bank seems to agree with Mr. Goyal. A report released by them states that the capital costs for solar energy have plunged by 60% in the last 4 years and there is a high possibility of them dropping by another 40%. In addition, the report says that investments in the solar power sector would outrun the investments made in the coal industry and this would happen by the year 2020. The investment prediction in the Indian solar sector by global players is likely to exceed $35 billion, which is a 240% higher forecast.
Clean energy is becoming a reality and attaining ‘mainstream’ status, especially because it is a lot cheaper. The Fortune said that electricity got through solar and wind farms is cheap enough to compare with coal and natural gas in many parts of the world, even though solar panel farms may have a higher operating cost than large wind farms. However, there would be a further drop in the technology and financing costs, making clean energy easily available.
While making his speech, Mr. Goyal mentioned that India too is on track to increase its solar power generation capacity by around 500% – that is about 100GWs by the year 2022. About 20GWs solar capacity, have already been approved by the government and another 14GWs are planned for the remaining part of this year – 2016, as per the budget of the country. He further added that there is still an enormous potential and this figure could increase to about 100,000W in the next 5-7 years. Mr. Goyal also added that our country was happy to assist other developing nations in Asia, Africa, and the pacific in their plans to develop clean energy.