The world is finally, it seems, transitioning to a new era of energy where the way we power the world, will no longer end up harming it. For the past couple centuries, fossil fuels have served us well.

In fact, fossil fuels drove the industrial revolution and our collective human endeavours after that and as a result we have managed to build the world that we live in where we are so much more technologically advanced than we could have ever imagined.

But all of that came with a cost and we are all aware of it and thanks to the advancement in our abilities to harness power from clean energy sources, we are now finally in a position to embark upon the necessary shift that has become the need of the hour.

The shift from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, will be the change of the century for us humans and the process has begun with many countries now looking at this more seriously. The latest news in this regards, comes from India.

A New Renewable Energy Record For India

In the month of July this year, thanks to rapidly developing infrastructure and favourable weather conditions, India’s renewable energy share reached an all time high of 13.2%, which amounted to 12.9 billion kilowatt-hours of energy generation.

Among the renewable energy sources, wind energy had the largest share thanks to the high-speed monsoon. In fact it accounted for 76.2% of that 12.9 billion kilowatt-hour that were generated by renewable sources.

Around same time last year, the renewable energy share was at around 10.5% of total energy generation of the country and the year before that, it was at around 10%. Suffice it to say, that is a good jump.

But while wind energy showed good promise, other areas were lacking, especially solar power where the country failed to meet its target of 4.75% registering only a share of 1.58%. Still, the increased focus on renewables is a very good sign.

Only Electric Cars To Be Sold By 2030

In a push towards a cleaner future, India also plans to phase out all non-electric cars by 2030 and only sell electric vehicles. This would be a major feat to achieve especially in a country where change is a little more difficult than elsewhere and where there are over 70 million motor vehicles.

Despite all this, the government is confident that they can manage to do this. In fact, to “motivate” car manufacturers to move towards producing electric vehicles, the Minister for Road Transport of India has stated that he would not mind bulldozing the automobile manufacturers that don’t comply.

But I am sure it won’t come to that as there is an increasing trend in offering electric vehicles amongst the manufacturers as we all know that electric vehicles are in fashion now thanks to the efforts of companies like Tesla and the others.

All of this would require a major change in the way we generate and store electricity, refuel our cars (which will now be recharging for which there would need to be an entire network of charging stations.

Other Efforts

Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has been hard at work signing deals with a lot of countries to help the country move to a future where we can give up fossil fuels completely and adopt renewables for all the energy requirements.

Also, as a part of the ‘make in India’ initiative, India’s largest floating solar power plant was installed recently in the state of Kerala which has a capacity of 100 kW during peak times.

Also, the world’s largest solar power plant was completed last year with a capacity of generating 648 MW of power with plans for more plants on the way.

It seems like India has begun on the right path as far as energy is concerned and it comes at a time when it has become a necessity owing to the rampant pollution and environment degradation that are increasingly becoming more severe every year.