Gujarat is now the Fourth State to Meet RE Targets For 2022, But Four Key States Need to Ramp Up – EQ Mag Pro

Solar is driving India’s renewables growth

From Ember’s Indian State RES Target and Progress Tracker, we were able to analyse the trends so far in India’s renewables transition.

Strong growth in solar in 2022; peaking in March

India has 116 GW renewables installed as of August 2022. This means it has so far achieved 66% of the 2022 target of 175 GW RES, 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.

Four states have now met their 2022 RES target

Gujarat is the latest state to meet its 2022 RE target. It surpassed its target in May 2022 – joining Telangana, Rajasthan and Karnataka. Gujarat’s success has been in a consistent build-rate in the last few years. Also, it isn’t just relying on solar; it’s one of the few states that is still building wind, installing 63% of India’s new wind capacity this year.

Rajasthan overtakes Gujarat. Rajasthan overtook Gujarat in March 2022 with the most installed renewable electricity. Almost half of the renewables built in India this year was in Rajasthan (5 GW out of 11.1 GW). That’s even after Rajasthan had already met its renewable target last December.

Rajasthan and Gujarat are powering India’s transition. In the first eight months of this year 49% of India’s new solar capacity was built in Rajasthan and 63% of India’s wind was built in Gujarat.

Much of the shortfall in the 175 GW target is in just four states

61% of India’s current target shortfall is in just four states. India is 58 GW away from meeting its 175 GW target for December 2022. 61% of this is in 4 big states – Maharashtra (11.1 GW), Uttar Pradesh (9.7 GW), Andhra Pradesh (9.2 GW), and Madhya Pradesh (6.5 GW).

There was very little new RES installed in these states in 2022 so far. If Maharashtra continued building at the average rate from January to August this year, it would take the state 20 years until they meet their December 2022 target. For Uttar Pradesh, it would take 80 years; Andhra Pradesh would take 44 years and Madhya Pradesh would take 55 years.

Source: ember-climate