The country continues to see positive development on the renewable energy front as new capacity addition to the grid from the clean energy sector has more than doubled during the first half of this fiscal compared with the year-ago period.
During April-September 2021, the renewable energy sector added 5,730 MW. In the same period last year, which saw disruption due to the first Covid wave, 2,152 MW was added, as per data provided by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
The previous highest first half addition was 4,273 MW in the first half of FY20.
The second quarter of this fiscal brought 3,208 MW of new capacity while the first quarter added 2,522 MW to the grid.
The major driver
Solar remains the major driver of new capacity as the segment added 5,039 MW, of which ground-mounted solar segment added 3,702 MW, rooftop sector added 1,134 MW, while off-grid category brought in about 202 MW during H1 of this fiscal. Wind segment added 623 MW of new capacity during the period.
As of September 30, the total installed renewable capacity (including off-grid capacity) stood at 101.53 GW. Of this, the solar power segment accounts for 46.27 GW (including off-grid capacity of 1,353 MW), followed by wind power at 39.87 GW and bio power at 10.12 GW. Small hydro segment accounted for 4.81 GW.
Ambitious capacity target
The Central government has set ambitious targets for new capacity addition in the renewable energy sector. In 2015, it announced a total capacity target of 175 GW by the end of 2022. Now, it has raised the capacity target to 450 GW by 2030.
“We used to have less than a few KW installations in solar energy segment in 2010, a few companies were given projects & 1 MW each as a demonstration, it was a big project at that time. But policy framework helped the industry grow to where it is today. We are at 40GW (ground-mounted) capacity in 10 years. As a country that is a phenomenal achievement. From a tax incentive and subsidy-based sector, renewable has become a competitive energy source in a decade,” said Saibaba Vutukuri, CEO, Vikram Solar.
There is a huge demand for projects from IPPs. Huge amount has been invested through IPPs; they are capable of delivering gigawatts of projects. “We need to unleash the bidding process and we need to go to old regulatory system of decided pricing, as price discovery has already happened,” he added.