India third in attractiveness index of renewable energy: Report

NEW DELHI: India is placed at the third position after the United States and China in the ' Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index', according to an EY report.

"This is primarily due to strong focus of the Indian government on renewable energy coupled with the actual timely implementation of renewable energy projects," EY said in a statement.

The US, China and India featured in the top three countries in the index with the size and scale of renewables activity surpassing others.

"The so-called 'emerging' markets now represent half of the countries in the 40-strong index, including four African markets featuring in the top 30," it said.

Just a decade ago only China and India were attractive enough to compete with more developed markets for renewable energy investment. Chile, Brazil and Mexico also climbed higher in the index top 10, while Germany and France fell in the latest ranking, it added.

"The report also demonstrates that low solar bids (which appear unviable) are not a phenomenon that is restricted to India, but other countries such as Mexico, Dubai etc have also been reporting very low solar bids," Kuljit Singh, Partner, Infrastructure practice, EY said.

"As is the case with India, wind continues to be at a pricing premium to solar in rest of the world - but both these technologies are racing towards grid parity which may lead to not so desirable consequences for traditional utility business models," Singh said.