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The Indian renewable energy sector has added its highest-ever annual new capacity in FY22, driven by the solar sector which brought in 91 per cent of the new capacity.
For FY22, the renewable power sector added 14,077 MW against 7,356 MW and 8,711 MW in pandemic hit-FY21 and FY20, respectively. The solar power segment added a total new capacity of 12,761 MW, the highest-ever annual addition by the sector.
In solar power capacity addition, the ground-mounted sector accounted for 10,148 MW in FY22, rooftop solar added 2,206 MW and the off-grid segment brought in 407 MW during the year, according to data provided by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
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The previous highest annual capacity additions were 11,754 MW and 11,320 MW achieved in FY18 and F17, respectively.
2022 target
The Central government had set a target of 175 GW renewable power installed capacity by the end of 2022. In this, solar power capacity should be at 100 GW, while wind power’s capacity was to reach 60 GW. Biomass power and small hydro power segments capacities are expected at 10 GW and 5 GW respectively.
As of March 31, 2022, the total grid-connected capacity of renewables stood at 110 GW. Of this, the solar power segment accounted for 54 GW (including 46 GW of ground-mounted capacity), followed by wind power at 40 GW and biopower at 11 GW. The small hydro segment accounted for 4.8 GW.
RK Singh
The Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy RK Singh recently said that 44.27 GW worth of solar power projects were under implementation, while 13.86 GW of projects were under the tendering process.
Meanwhile, a report by JMK Research points out that the utility-scale segment is on track to achieve nearly 97 per cent of its 60 GW target. On the other hand, rooftop solar has severely underperformed over the years. By December 2022, this segment is expected to fall short of its target by 25GW.
“It is imperative to have a greater focus on and more concerted efforts towards expanding rooftop solar,” the report said.
Variable RE challenges
Meanwhile, the government has raised the capacity target to be achieved by 2030 to 450 GW to boost renewable energy (RE) installation over the long term.
“Within this, the target for solar is 300 GW. Given the challenge of integrating variable RE into the grid, most of the RE capacity installed in the latter half of this decade is likely to be based on wind-solar hybrid (WSH), RE-plus storage and round-the-clock RE projects rather than plain vanilla solar/wind projects. The rooftop solar market is expected to develop at a higher growth rate in the future than that hitherto achieved,” said the report.
On the other hand, lack of land and grid availability would become more challenging for the utility-scale market, disincentivising annual capacity addition in the same market. This would act as the primary headwind against overall solar sector growth, it stated.
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