India's solar capacity hit 30GW in Q1

Solar accounted for 38% of the 80GW renewable installed capacity in Q1.

India’s solar capacity has reached a milestone of 30GW, according to preliminary figures from Mercom India’s solar project tracker.

Amongst renewables, solar accounted for 38% of the 80GW installed capacity at the end of March 2019, inching up by 2% QoQ. Renewables made up approximately 21% of the total 358GW installed power capacity, an increase of 1.1% YoY.

Meanwhile, out of the total installed capacity, large-hydro power projects’ cumulative installations represented 12.66% or 45.3GW. They have also been classified under renewables by the Ministry of Power in its effort to achieve the Paris Climate Agreement goal of generating 40% of electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030.

“Small hydro witnessed a growth of 2.4% YoY with 107 MW of newly added capacity in FY 2018/2019. The cumulative installed capacity of small-hydro stood at 4.6GW, making up 1.28% of the total installed capacity at the end of March 2019,” Mercom India’s research associate Pratheeksha added.

Overall, renewable energy capacity additions increased in India, accounting for approximately 22.3% of its energy mix as at the end of FY 2018. This represented a substantial increase from 20.3% share recorded in FY 2017, due to solar capacity additions.

“With the new milestone, 30% of the solar installation goal of 100 GW by 2022 set by the current administration has been achieved, which means 70 GW of solar needs to be installed in the next three years,” she highlighted.