As per the the report released by Ember, a global think-tank, India has 116 GW renewables installed as of August 2022. This means India has so far achieved 66% of the 2022 target of 175 GW RES (small hydro, wind, solar, bioenergy), up from 60% at the start of the year.
India installed 17% more renewable capacity than last year in the first 8 months of the year. 11.1 GW of renewables capacity was installed from January to August, compared to 9.5 GW in the same period in 2021.
New solar installations rose by 22%; solar was 89% of all renewables growth. 9.8 GW of solar was installed between January to August 2022, up 22% year-on-year. Solar’s share of all new renewable capacity rose to 89% this year, from 85% in the same period in 2021.
New wind installations rose by only 7%; wind was just 10% of all renewables growth. 1.1 GW was installed between January to August 2022, up 7% year-on-year. Wind’s share of all new renewable capacity fell to just 10% this year from 12% in the same period last year. Small hydro and bioenergy contributed just 1% of all renewable growth in January to August 2022.
Renewables growth hit a record high in March; but July saw the lowest growth since June 2020. Renewables installations set a new record of 3.5 GW in March, ahead of the change to customs duty. By July, this collapsed to just 0.3 GW, although August recovered to 1.6 GW.
India would need to install renewables 2.5 times faster to meet its 2030 target.
To meet the current national RES target of 450 GW by 2030, 334 GW needs to be built in the next 91 months, which would need an addition of 3.7 GW per month. That’s 2.5 times the average installation rate of 1.4 GW from January to August 2022. Monthly installation rates would need to consistently hit the all-time high set in March to reach the 2030 target.
