India’s Renewable Energy Installation Stands at 168 GW, Coal-Based Power Grows 536 MW in a Year

Central Electricity Authority has revealed in its installed electricity capacity report that the renewable energy capacity of the country has crossed 168 GW but the speed of the RE expansion doesn’t give out a comfortable picture considering India’s 2030 targets. The RE installed capacity of India as on January 31, 2023 stands at 168,399 MW. Solar power capacity across country is installed at 63.8 GW and wind power is about to touch 42 GW.

Excluding hydropower, the renewables make just 121,549 MW. The Government of India has set the 2022 target of achieving 175 GW which excluded the large hydropower projects. India was supposed to install 100 GW of solar, 60 GW of wind, 10 GW from bio-energy and rest 5 GW from small hydro. Solar and wind alone was supposed to be 160 GW but the actual installation is far from the target that the country missed.

The present renewable capacity is about 16 GW higher than the installed capacity on the same date a year ago. Renewables, mainly solar and wind, was a 105 GW on January 31, 2022.

Coal-based power generation, which is supposed to give way to renewables sources of energy and decline steadily, has actually grown. Year on year basis, the coal based power generation grew by 536 MW as on January 31, 2023. India’s total installed power capacity is 411 GW and the share of fossil fuel based power generation that includes coal, diesel, gas and lignite is more than 236 GW.

According to CEA, the total solar capacity added in January was barely 590 MW, while Wind Energy capacity added was just 53 MW. By contrast, Solar Capacity added in January, 2022 was 957 MW – a full 38% drop.

This translates into the fact that although the share of the renewables is rising in the energy basket but the fossil fuel based power generation has increased in absolute numbers.

There is vast regional disparity in the distribution of renewable power generation including large hydro in the country. Southern region has crossed 61 GW mark as a whole while Eastern and North Eastern region would together make just 9 GW.

Karnataka tops the renewable energy chart among the states with 20,102 MW and its followed by Tamil Nadu (19,854) Gujarat (19,638 MW).