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Comment by 0xFFFE | Hacker News Reader

India has an ambitious goal of generating 175GW from renewable sources by 2022. There are various solar power plants coming up all over the country.

Source: https://www.niti.gov.in/reports [Line item 6]

PS: NITI is the apex advisory body to the Indian Govt.

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That's a remarkable commitment. In 2016, NDTV said that India produced 300GW, of which 42GW was renewable. So, the 175GW goal adds 3 times as much. Even 50GW of that going to transportation ... whew!

NITI's report (2015)* says there are still 300M people without electricity, but that "India’s solar potential is greater han 750 GW and its announced wind potential is 302 GW". A fine demonstration of what foresight, will and technical capability can accomplish.

* https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/energy/175-GW-Re...

India also investing smartly in the nuclear technology, while less smart governments ditching it.

a governments smartness is defined by its investment in nuclear energy? why are renewables not a smart investment?

You still need to generate base load, only hydro out of the three renewables is good with base load, and no, batteries are not a replacement for base load generation. Pumped storage is, but it's pretty inefficient and requires the right physical siting to build.

Base load is a misnomer. Nowadays people talk about dispatchable power. base load is an economic forcing function to justify high efficiency "always-on" generation models. Nobody actually wants this, as much as they want power when they need it. Synchronous condensers, PH, and fast response batteries with some topping up from gas turbines could be as good. Base power is just the low engineering effort answer.

There are other answers than "base load"

A good grid, batteries and power-to-gas is a replacement for base load generation.

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