Solar Capacity Additions Continue to Slow Down, July 2022 Records Barely 270 MW

In July 2022, India added 268.06 MW of solar capacity which is 66.03% less than what India added in June 2022. If we see the total solar capacity added in July 2021, it’s 1604.63 MW. Comparing it with this year in the same period, it’s almost 83% less than the previous year.

The rise in BCD on module import, rising module prices in the global market, besides the continuing impact of project delays caused by the pandemic and other issues continue to weigh down growth. This comes at a time when additions for this year have been projected in the range of 14 to 16 GW by most estimates, with the corporate (open access ) sector expected to play an increasingly important role.

By the end of the first quarter of 2022 (Jan-March), India added 4649.83 MW of solar energy. It’s 41.48% year-on-year growth in comparison to the previous year where Indian added just 2720.73 MW of solar energy. However, the slowdown seen since May will worry industry observers, if it continues further, as that will hurt overall numbers.

Month Name(year-2022)	Solar Energy(MW)	Other Renewable Energy Sources(MW)
Jan-22	956.87	0.5
Feb-22	474.19	17.46
Mar-22	3218.77	64.18
Apr-22	1341.12	2
May-22	1613.67	35.5
Jun-22	754.39	837.54
Jul-22	268.06
Total in MW	8627.07	957.18

 

2022	2022	in MW	in GW
Solar	Q2	3709.18	3.70918

 

2021	Q1 (MW)	Q2 (MW)	Q3 (MW)	Q4 (MW)
Solar	2620.73	2250.12	3939.65	3071.57

 

By the end of Q2 of 2022, India added 3709.18 MW of solar capacity. If we compare it with the second quarter of 2021, it’s 64.84% year-on-year growth on the  2250.12 MW of solar capacity that was added in the same quarter last year.

While there seems to be a strong year on year growth, the indications for the next few quarters are not encouraging on a sequential basis this year. In  Q1 of 2022, India added 4649.83 MW of solar. Here, we can see an almost 20% decline in Q2 of 2022.

In the first two quarters of 2022, India added 8627.07 MW of solar energy, a 77.11% year-on-year growth compared to 4870.85 MW registered in the same period last year. Other renewable energy sources added around 957.18 MW by end of Q2 of 2022. If we compare the same with last year’s data, we find a growth of almost 92%.

The overall growth of solar energy could have been more but due to various factors including the aforementioned rising prices of solar modules in the global market, it wasn’t able to achieve what was expected.