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GPMDG.org Launch

World Resources Institute India, Confederation of Indian Industry, Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation have launched a new portal under the Green Power Market Development Group (GPMDG) initiative to serve as a comprehensive resource center for the Indian corporate sector. This is much-needed in order to propel the corporate renewable energy market and help India achieve its overall national targets.

The Green Power Market Development Group (GPMDG) India, launched in 2013, is an initiative that has been focused on the corporate renewable energy sector, and has formally established chapters in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Maharashtra, and NCR. The Group has worked on deal facilitation, new business model development, and has engaged with regulators and policymakers to further this market. Key successes include facilitating a large-scale solar power procurement by the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru.

After 5 years of working closely with businesses and regulatory bodies, the Group has launched gpmdg.org to curate tools, case studies and other documentation to serve as a repository for future work in these areas. While GPMDG will continue to convene and facilitate discussions between regulatory bodies and the corporate sector, this portal will help disseminate knowledge to larger audiences, thus enabling them to make and execute decisions related to RE procurement.

The procurement of renewable energy by big businesses, and commercial and industrial (C&I) consumers is much talked about in the clean energy discourse. While declining prices of renewables have proved to be the major driver for the adoption of renewable energy (RE) by corporates, their internal sustainability goals as well as external mandates fixed by policymakers and regulators have also played a significant part.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) states that corporations purchased close to 5.4 GW of clean energy in 2017, and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in its recent report Corporate Sourcing of Renewable Energy: Market and

Industry Trends stated that 465 TWh of renewable power was sourced by corporates in 2017 – roughly the electricity demand of France.

These are fairly large numbers, but the potential for RE penetration is still higher – 64 percent of the world’s electricity (measured at end use) is consumed by the C&I sector. In India, this figure is close to 50 percent. While the market has tremendous potential, several gaps on the policy and regulatory side exist that serve as barriers to quicker adoption of RE projects by these consumers. Through this portal, GPMDG aims to accelerate the growth of clean energy in India.

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