Hits and misses: India’s solar power energy targets

The story so far: A report jointly prepared by two energy research firms – JMK Research and Analytics and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis – says India is unlikely to meet its 2022 target of installing 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity. This is because solar energy remains on the roof, the authors say.

What is India’s solar policy?

Since 2011, the Indian solar industry has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 59% from 0.5 GW in 2011 to 55 GW in 2021. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), also known as the National Solar Mission (NSM), launched in January 2010, marked the first time the government focused on promoting and developing solar energy in India. Under the scheme, the target for total installed capacity by 2022 was set at 20 GW. In 2015, the target was revised to 100 GW and in August 2021 the government set a solar target of 300 GW by 2030.

India currently ranks fifth after China, the US, Japan and Germany in terms of installed solar capacity. As of December 2021, India’s cumulative installed solar capacity is 55 GW, which is about half of the renewable energy (RE) capacity (excluding major hydropower) and 14% of India’s total power generation capacity. Within the 55GW, utility-scale grid-connected projects contribute 77% with the remainder coming from grid-connected rooftop and off-grid projects.

What does the report say?

As of April, only about 50% of the 100 GW target, comprising 60 GW of utilities and 40 GW of rooftop solar, has been met. Nearly 19 GW of solar capacity is expected to be added by 2022 – 15.8 GW of utility scale and 3.5 GW of rooftop solar. Even taking this capacity into account, about 27% of India’s 100GW solar target would not be met, according to Jyoti Gulia, co-author of the report and founder, JMK Research. By December 2022, a 25 GW shortfall is expected in the 40 GW rooftop solar target, compared to 1.8 GW in the utility-scale solar target. So it is with rooftop solar that the challenges of Indian solar adoption policy stand out.

What are the reasons why the application of solar energy on the roof does not meet the targets?

In December 2015, the government launched the first phase of the grid-connected rooftop solar program to boost its use in residential, institutional and social areas. The second phase, approved in February 2019, had a target of 40 GW of cumulative rooftop solar capacity by 2022, with incentives in the form of central financial assistance (CFA). As of November 2021, of the Phase 2 target of 4GW for the residential sector, only 1.1GW had been installed. The disruption of supply chains caused by the pandemic has been a major barrier to the adoption of rooftop solar.

In its early years, the Indian rooftop solar market struggled to grow, hampered by a lack of consumer awareness, inconsistent policy frameworks from central and state governments, and funding. Recently, however, there has been a surge in rooftop solar installations due to falling technology costs, rising grid rates, increasing consumer awareness and the growing need to reduce energy costs. These factors are expected to continue and give this segment a much-needed boost, the report said. Going forward, rooftop solar adoption is expected to increase proportionally as land and grid connectivity for utility solar projects are expected to be difficult to obtain. Factors hindering rooftop solar installation include pandemic-induced supply chain disruption from policy restrictions, regulatory roadblocks; limits on netting (or paying users returning excess electricity to the grid); taxes on imported cells and modules, unsigned power supply agreements (PSAs) and banking restrictions; funding issues plus delays or rejections of grants for open access approval; and the unpredictability of future open access charges, the report notes.

How crucial is solar energy to India’s commitment to combating climate change?

Solar energy is an important part of India’s commitment to tackle global warming under the terms of the Paris Agreement, and to achieve net zero or no net carbon emissions by 2070.

Prime Minister Modi said at the United Nations Conference of Parties in Glasgow in November 2021 that India would reach a non-fossil energy capacity of 500 GW by 2030 and meet half of its energy needs through renewable energy by 2030.

To drive the long-term drive for renewable energy installation, the Center has set a 2020 target of 450 GW of HE-based installed capacity to be achieved by 2030, within which the target for solar was 300 GW.

Given the challenge of integrating variable renewables into the grid, most of the RE capacity installed in the second half of this decade is likely to be based on wind/solar hybrid (WSH), RE-plus storage and 24 hour RE projects rather than traditional solar/wind projects, the report said. On the current trajectory, India’s solar target of 300 GW by 2030 will deviate about 86 GW, or nearly a third.

In fact, the authors speculate that in the near term the government will aggressively push to accelerate the addition of solar capacity to reach the 100 GW target by 2022 by reallocating some of the unfulfilled rooftop targets to utility-scale projects. .

• A report prepared by JMK Research and Analytics and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says India is likely to miss its 2022 target of installing 100 GW of solar capacity.

• The report states that as of April, only about 50% of the target of 100 GW, comprising 60 GW of utilities and 40 GW of solar on roofs, has been met. Nearly 19 GW of solar capacity is expected to be added by 2022 – 15.8 GW of utility scale and 3.5 GW of rooftop solar.

• The Indian rooftop solar market initially struggled to grow, hampered by a lack of consumer awareness, inconsistent policy frameworks from central and state governments, and funding. But thanks to falling technology costs, rising grid rates, increasing consumer awareness and the growing need to reduce energy costs, the rooftop solar market is slowly taking off.