Solar overtakes the wind as India’s largest renewable energy technology

Solar power has replaced wind power to become the largest renewable energy technology in India.

According to data reported by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy for January 2021, solar power capacity in India was 38.7 gigawatts. The wind power capacity was 38.6 gigawatts.

Solar power overtaking wind power as India’s largest renewable energy technology is no surprise – it was long overdue. However, the rate at which solar power capacity has increased has been remarkable. Ten years ago, solar power capacity was only 18 megawatts, while wind power capacity was 13 gigawatts (13,000 megawatts). Thus, in the last ten years, the capacity of solar energy has increased by 2,150 times while the capacity of wind energy has increased by three times.

There are several reasons for this exponential growth in solar energy. More states in India are endowed with solar energy resources than those with wind energy resources. With the exception of the northeastern states and a few northern states, almost all Indian states can support large-scale solar power projects. Wind energy projects have been concentrated in six to seven states, with most of the capacity installed in coastal states.

Another factor that has supported the rise of solar power over wind power is the rapid decline in equipment costs. The price of solar modules has fallen sharply in recent years, in particular due to the strong growth in production capacities of Chinese manufacturers, who supply a large majority of cells and modules used in India. While India is largely self-sufficient in manufacturing equipment for wind power, companies here have failed to launch the largest megawatt turbines seen in the European market.

This drop in costs has also led to a sharp drop in the price offers submitted by developers. Earlier this year, two tenders recorded bids of around 2 rupees (2.84 ¢) per kilowatt hour, a new record for solar power in India.

The development of solar power parks that provide developers with the plug-and-play ability to implement projects has been a major differentiator between the development of solar and wind power. Several states as well as the MNRE have focused on the development of large solar parks of up to 4 gigawatts. No such concerted effort has been made for the development of wind farms.

Finally, successive Indian governments have focused more on the development of solar energy. A national mission for solar energy was launched in 2010 while a similar mission for wind energy was launched in 2015. The installation target was also much higher for solar energy. India has set itself the goal of having 100 gigawatts of solar power and only 60 gigawatts of wind power by 2022. This despite the fact that wind power already had a huge heads-up in terms of power. of installed capacity compared to solar energy when these objectives were announced in 2014.