At 268.7 MW, India’s Sept Solar Additions Lowest In 5 Years

With Lowest New Additions, Sept Proved To Be The Worst For India's RE Sector 

The latest installed capacity data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) shows that India could add only 268.77 Megawatt (MW) of new renewable energy capacities in September this year. An analysis of the older records by Saur Energy revealed that this was the lowest addition of green power in the month of September in the last five years.

Monthly installed capacity archival data from CEA revealed that India added 1,249 GW of renewable capacities in the same month in 2019-2020. During the same period, the country reported additions of 436 MW of renewable energy in 2020-21 and 2,002.68 MW in 2022-23. It made India’s new addition of green energy the slowest in the last five years during September 2023. 

On the other hand, in terms of H1 (half-yearly) data, the additions of renewable energy are slower compared to 2022-23. As per the data available with the CEA, India added 8,194.94 MW of renewable energy capacities from April 2022-23 to September 2022-23 (H1). On the other hand, during the H1 of the current fiscal, India added only 6,624.39 MW, hinting toward negative growth. 

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Solar leads the growth 

Meanwhile, data from the government agency claimed that out of the 268.77 MW of new renewable energy added in September this year, most of them were solar energy, with no new growth reported in small hydropower plants and biomass.

Data revealed that in September this year, India added 170.74 MW of solar energy while it added 94.95 MW of wind energy. In addition to these prime sources, India saw the addition of 3 MW of new capacities from waste-to-energy capacities. 

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This contrasts with the growth of renewable energy in the country in the previous few months. For example, India added 2,873 MW of new capacities in June this year. It also added 1076 MW of new green energy capacities in May this year. 

Outlook

While the poor capacity additions in September are also a reflection of the tendering and auctions environment back in 2021 or even earlier, the fact remains that such poor numbers augur poorly for 2023 numbers. With a minimum target of 25 GW per year from here on to meet 2030 goals, and a looming power crisis, due to faster than expected rise in demand, a turnaround in pace of additions is needed, sooner rather than later. For now, it is clear that the situation will improve by early next year, based on the tendering that was done since 2022 as well as the pending pipeline, but 2023 looks set to be poor show overall, with three months to go.