Climate change plan calls for 10 per cent renewable energy by 2015

India can afford to hike its renewable energy share in national power output to 10 per cent by 2015 from under 4 per cent today.

According to a new report, the national action plan on climate change India should generate by 2015, 10 per cent of its power from solar, wind, hydro power and other renewable energy sources and take it to 15 per cent by 2020. However there are deterrents like the high production cost and its effect on state power utilities.

The Crisil Infrastructure Advisory's report assesses the potential for renewable energy of states, renewable energy purchase obligations of state utilities and its impact on tariffs. According to the report, the additional costs would be minimal.

''The incremental impact on power purchase costs pan-India would be about 1.5 paise a unit in 2011 diminishing to 0.1 paisa by 2015,'' says the report. ''The maximum impact for any state would be 4.2 paise a unit in 2011, which would go down to about 1 paisa by 2015.''

With limited conventional energy resources, India has to import nearly three quarters of its energy needs. India's renewable energy potential is around 100,000 MW for solar energy and an additional 85,000 MW from non-solar sources of which only 17,220 MW has been tapped - 69 per cent from wind energy, 16 per cent from small hydropower units and 8 per cent from cogeneration.

The balance 7 per cent includes solar energy and other sources, according to Crisil.