India will lead the global energy transition, and the country will be a net exporter of green energy by 2050, Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani group said today.
“Cooling the planet down will be one of the most profitable businesses and the largest of job creators over the next several decades. I am in no doubt that India will lead the global energy transition,” Adani said while addressing the World Congress of Accountants in Mumbai.
He announced that over the next decade the Adani group will invest over USD 70 billion in the green energy space and build the world’s most integrated renewable energy value chain.
Predicting India will need 400 per cent more units of energy by 2050 than it currently consumes, Adani said that there is little doubt that India’s energy transition will be unparalleled as it races to meet its energy needs.
India currently ranks third in the renewable energy attractive index and is the world’s third-largest energy-consuming country.
Adani added that given the dramatic and continued drop in the cost of renewable energy, especially solar power, the marginal cost of green power is headed to ‘zero’.
“The ability of this ‘zero’ cost electron to economically split a water molecule and create 100 per cent green hydrogen in the future is now certain. The combination of solar and wind power coupled with green hydrogen opens up unprecedented possibilities for India,” the Adani group chairman further added.
Adani said that India’s population will grow by 15 per cent to 1.6 billion, but the per capita income will accelerate by over 700 per cent to approximately USD 16,000 over the next 28 years. India’s current per capita income is around USD 2,200.
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Adani expressed his confidence that India will reap its demographic dividend to drive consumption and accelerate the growth of a tax-paying society. He highlighted the fact that even in 2050, India’s median age will be 38 years, and the surge in per capita income will drive an unprecedented surge in demand. This in turn will drive a surge in private and government expenditures as well as attract the highest levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
To support his point, he said that India is expected to record a 15 per cent increase and an all-time high of over USD 100 billion in FDI this year.
“Such scale of investments lay the foundation for significant job expansion,” he said.
“It took us 58 years to get our first trillion dollars of GDP, 12 years to get the next trillion and just five years for the third trillion. Given the pace at which the Government has been executing a vast multitude of simultaneous social and economic reforms, I anticipate that within the next decade, India will start adding a trillion dollars to its GDP every 12 to 18 months,” he further said.