Rewind 2019: A Look Back at Significant Developments in Renewable Energy Sector

R K Singh, Minister of New and Renewable Energy, recently said that India is set to cross the 100-Gw renewable energy capacity mark in 2020 and can make rapid strides towards the ambitious 175 Gw clean energy target by 2022 provided the government keeps a close eye on key issues and deals with those well in time.

India has come a long way in renewable energy in the past decade. The country’s installed capacity has risen sixfold to nearly 83 gigawatts (1 GW = 1,000 MW). And in the past 5 years, solar power, which is set to become bigger than wind energy within renewables, has seen its capacity grow around 12 times to over 31 GW, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA).

The Indian renewable energy is ranked 4th in wind power, 5th in solar power and 5th in renewable power installed capacity as of 2019. On investment side the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a $451 million loan to the state of Tamil Nadu.

Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM), which was launched earlier this year, to solarize India’s agriculture industry has met with mixed responses. While there are some who are lauding the initiative, some are not happy with the clauses and conditions. The policy flip-flop during the last six months have affected the investor sentiments.

To promote clean mobility in public transportation, the Department of Heavy Industry under the Ministry of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises has granted the approval for 5,595 electric buses to be deployed in 64 cities. With this initiative, the upcoming year will see many more electric buses plying the streets of cities.

With the largest personal mobility company, Uber, signing a pact with Sun Mobility, to deploy electric autos, private transportation services will start becoming more and more environment friendly.

Policy measures like the Ministry of Environment has decided to relax the lease rent charged on wind projects, will help witness newer projects in future.

In this year’s ‘The State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index’ (SARAL), mentions that states like Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, have achieved top positions. Similarly, this year’s analysis by World Economic Forum, shows that states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh are building momentum for EV usage.

While looking at the scenario in USA, for the first time ever, in April 2019, renewable energy outpaced coal by providing 23 percent of US power generation, compared to coal’s 20 percent share. Cost factors are declining global while capacity factors of renewable energy sources are rising. Increased capacity of battery storage is helping to drive growth globally.

Many such factors give a reason to cherish. When a lot progress has been achieved in 2019, experts underline that much also needs to be done to achieve tall targets for the upcoming year.

India is unlikely to produce 175 gigawatts of renewable energy 2022. With this it will miss the target by 42 percent. This was highlighted by the recently published research note by CRISIL Ltd. As a reason for the shortfall, it sights regulatory challenges, policy flip-flops, and record low renewable power tariffs.

With issues related to tariff caps, land acquisition and an import duty on solar cells and modules slowed the pace of solar capacity addition, expert underline that India might fall short of the target. As delays in payments by utilities, Andhra Pradesh’s decision to renegotiate tariffs of solar and wind projects and a liquidity crunch caused by problems in the shadow-banking sector have plunged the clean energy sector into its worst crisis in recent years.

While annual capacity addition has almost kept doubling every year since 2014-15, year 2018-19 was an exception with annual capacity addition plunging to 6529.20 MW, as against 9362.67 MW in year 2017-18. according to the data furnished by power minister Raj Kumar Singh in the lower house of the Parliament (Lok Sabha) recently.

While 2019 left us with a sense of success, a lot still needs to be done to maintain the momentum for the nest year.