Achieving energy access is essential to growth and economic development. As a result, countries are developing and implementing policies to promote clean energy in the global efforts to combat climate change. The World Bank reports that renewable energy can help countries fight the climate crisis, build resilience to volatile prices and lower energy costs.
Many developed countries have successfully integrated renewable energy and are geared towards 100 per cent clean energy for their activities. On the other hand, developing countries lack the public funds to deploy sufficient new clean energy infrastructure. Nonetheless, resource abundance and project profitability attract private sector investments to aid the development. In 2020, renewable energy developments received over $300 billion from public and private investors.
While much more funding is still required for countries to reach net-zero, some developing nations are sailing the tides to achieve their targets faster than others.
One such country is Morocco. Regardless of being one of the largest energy importers, the Moroccan government concentrates on developing its energy infrastructure. In 2015, the country had an installed capacity of 787MW of renewable energy. This capacity grew significantly to 3.9GW in 2020. Morocco has deployed projects that contribute about 40 per cent of its installed energy capacity and plans to exceed 50 per cent by 2030. Among the several projects in the country, the Noor Ouarzazate Solar Complex is the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant. The plant has a capacity of 580MW. Morocco has also constructed many large-scale wind projects.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, India set an ambitious target of installing 450GW of renewable energy by 2030. To date, renewable energy now forms a quarter of India’s total installed capacity, accounting for 13 per cent of the country’s energy needs. In March 2022, the government added 13.9GW of solar power to the national grid. Among the many projects leading to this growth are India’s solar parks, some of the world’s largest with minimal tariffs.
What are these countries doing differently?
These two countries stand out among other developing nations because their governments provide and implement enabling policies that give private sectors assurance of investment returns. Another factor is the provision of incentives and risk management instruments in projects’ early phases to allow utilities to incorporate renewable energy sources without facing economic downturns.