In Episode 04, we host Dhruba Purkayastha, India Director at the Climate Policy Initiative, and discuss the state of the distributed solar sector in India. As India's population and energy demand grows rapidly, distributed renewable energy and specifically distributed solar and storage is becoming increasingly important to enable access to clean, affordable and reliable electricity to the country's vastly underserved population. Currently, as India falls short of its target of deployment of 40 GW of distributed solar by 2022, we ask Dhruba about his views on the development of the sector so far and the barriers to its growth in the future.

Dhruba has over 20 years of experience in consulting, investment banking and international development financing in Asian countries. He has previously worked with the World Bank and the IFC and he advices a wide range of governmental and public sector institutions in areas of policy and institutional development. At CPI, Dhruba is the Director for the US-India Clean Energy Finance (USICEF) programme, which is India's first project preparation facility to drive the growth of the distributed renewable energy sector in India.

Hope you enjoy this episode!

Link to relevant reading material:

• USICEF: Impacts and lessons learnt, 2017 - 2020
• CPI, 2019. The future of distributed renewable energy in India.
• CPI, 2018. Drivers and challenges for rooftop solar loans to small and medium enterprises in India.
• IEA, 2021. India energy outlook.

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Artwork by Ojustme
Intro / outro Like before by Silencyde