The government has set an ambitious target of installing 500 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity by 2030, in keeping with its commitment to source about half its energy needs from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.

Philanthropic organisation Rockefeller Foundation has reinforced its support to India's energy transition. The foundation announced a $75 million commitment to support rural electrification in India in 2015 and then topped it up with a partnership with Tata Power to develop rural microgrids.

In a conversation with CNBC-TV18, Rockefeller's President Rajiv Shah acknowledged that while there has been tremendous progress in India's renewable energy sector, there is still a long way to go. He emphasized the need for renewable energy to uplift the living standards of people in India.

Shah said, “The reality is, there is still a long way to go to help make sure that those energy technologies are not just more larger share of the overall energy mix, but actually deliver a development dividend so that users of renewable energy are able to start businesses, are able to create jobs, are able to send their children to school, are able to turn on the lights at night and keep them on in a reliable manner, and are able to really have the renewable energy revolution be something that creates tremendous human uplift in the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people.”

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Shah discussed the success of many public-private partnerships in India and the challenges that remain. One major challenge is getting the costs of renewable energy down while raising the scale of production.

He said, “Our assessment is that in many cases, our public private partnerships, which is how the Rockefeller Foundation works, are succeeding. The challenge is getting the cost down and the challenge is allowing for a greater scale to reach not just a few 100 additional mini-grids, but to create the 1000s and 1000s of additional distributed renewable electrification sites that we think need to be part of the energy mix going forward.”

The Rockefeller Foundation has explored partnerships on batteries and energy storage, but the cost of capital for energy storage and scaling remains too high. Shah stated that the foundation is trying to defray these investments to bring the cost of capital down.

He added, “We have explored a number of partnerships around battery and energy storage to allow the grid system itself to take on more in intermittent energy capacity. Frankly, with agricultural and other partners to make sure that customers especially in the rural areas, use power in a way that helps them earn more helps their farms be more productive, and allows them to have more income so they move up the economic ladder that's ultimately our goal.”

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The Rockefeller Foundation advanced their agenda for G20 to protect the planet and emphasized the need to have the right quality of infrastructure.

The foundation could partner with the Global Energy Alliance to de-risk commercial investment. Shah suggested that the G20 should not only be a place for talk but also a lot of action and the Rockefeller Foundation has been able to sport action in India for more than 100 years and would hope to continue that trend.

(Edited by : Pradeep John)