States need to contribute to achieve India’s 175 GW renewable energy target by 2022: Ember

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India needs 65 GW more in the next nine months to meet its target of 175 GW by December 2022

London:A global energy think tank, Ember, in its report, revealed that India’s journey to achieve its 175 GW renewable energy target is gaining momentum, but there is still some way to go to achieve this target.

“It will need 65 GW more in the next nine months to meet its target of 175 GW by December 2022. For India to reach the 2022 target, all states need to contribute” the report suggested.

The report also suggested that lack of progress in certain key states shows a disconnect between central targets and state priorities and may end up holding India back in its race to 175 GW.

“Indian states have their own RE targets for 2022 which add up 175 GW, but the progress on these state-level targets has been highly uneven” it said.

The report tittled ” India race to 175 GW” indicates that 27 Indian states and union territories are yet to achieve even half of their respective 2022 RE targets, while four have reached their targets.

This target is split between 100 GW of solar, 60 GW of wind, 10 GW of biopower and 5 GW of small hydro power.

“India’s renewables journey is gaining momentum. Although India may fall short of its 2022 RE target of 175 GW without including large hydro, it is more than possible for India to deliver on its 2030 targets of 450 GW RE or 500 GW non-fossil capacity. But that would need all the states to be fully engaged and aligned with the national targets” said Aditya LollaSenior Electricity Policy Analyst, Ember, Asia.

As of March 2022, the country’s installed RE capacity reached 110 GW (excluding large hydro), which is 63% of the 175 GW target.

Five key Indian states account for two-thirds of the shortfall on the 175 GW target, as of March 2022.

They are Maharashtra (11 GW), Uttar Pradesh (10 GW), Andhra Pradesh (9 GW), Madhya Pradesh (7 GW) and Tamil Nadu (5 GW).

Four of these five states have installed less than 0.5 GW of new renewables in the last six months.

Maharashtra installed 187 MW, Uttar Pradesh 235 MW, Andhra Pradesh 36 MW and Madhya Pradesh 88 MW. Rajasthan and Gujarat accounted for 73% of India’s new RE capacity in the last six months.

Rajasthan built about 4.8 GW RE capacity, Gujarat 1.8 GW and all the other states combined 2.5 GW between October 2021 and March 2022.

With just three quarters left until the end of 2022, 100% RE targets have been achieved in only three states, Telangana (248%), Rajasthan (119%) and Karnataka (107%), and one union territory (UT), Andaman and Nicobar (129%).

India’s solar installed capacity grew by 18% in the last 6 months, from 46 GW in September 2021 to 54 GW in March 2022. Even if this high growth rate continues for the next nine months, capacity will still fall significantly short of the 100 GW target in December.

To achieve 500 GW clean energy, It said to achieve 450 GW RE by 2030, India needs a five-fold growth in solar, four-fold growth in wind and three-fold growth in small hydro capacity in the next eight years.

“India needs to deploy 340 GW of new RE capacity to meet the 2030 target of 450 GW. This would mean 42.5 GW of RE addition every year on an average for the next eight years” it said.

The report said unless India builds enough RE capacity to meet this new demand, the country’s coal generation will continue to increase.

Small hydro needs to triple from the current level of 5 GW to meet the 2030 target of 15 GW. India is ahead of the curve when it comes to biopower with its 11 GW of installed capacity, which is already more than the 2030 target of 10 GW.

India’s electricity demand is expected to see an average annual growth rate of 4-5% till 2030.

The report also indicate that the lack of progress in rooftop solar deployments is holding India back from meeting its solar power target.

“A recent report estimates a 25 GW shortfall in the 40 GW rooftop solar target by December 2022, compared to 1.8 GW shortfall in the utility-scale solar target of 60 GW” it said.

India’s wind capacity additions in the last six months totalled less than 1 GW. Wind grew by just 2%, from 39.6 GW in September 2021 to 40.4 GW in March 2022.

“This is much lower than the growth rate needed to meet the December 2022 wind target of 60 GW. Only 0.2 GW new wind power capacity was commissioned in March 2022” it informed.

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