Solar & Wind Contribute 92% of India’s New Power Capacities In 2022

• Ember says India's solar installations of 13.9 GW in 2022 were led by Rajasthan and Gujarat
• Coal power additions were less than 1 GW, reflecting an annual decline of 78% and accounting for only 5% of all capacity additions in the country last year
• Rajasthan and Gujarat will account for largest additions of new solar and wind power capacity by 2030 due to their ambitious targets

The 13.9 GW of new solar PV capacity that India installed within the single year of 2022 was way ahead of cumulative solar deployments of several countries like the UK (13.7 GW), Turkey (7.8 GW) and Chile (4.5 GW), according to market intelligence firm Ember.

It was the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat that together installed 8.6 GW last year, higher than all of Turkey and Chile's PV fleet. Remaining Indian states contributed 5.3 GW PV, again larger than all of Chilean PV fleet, prompting Ember Data Analyst (Asia) Uni Lee to state, "India, especially the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, have demonstrated to the world that rapid deployment of solar and wind is not only possible, but also already happening."

Put together, India deployed 15.7 GW new solar and wind power capacity – solar (13.9 GW) and wind (1.83 GW) – in 2022 with an annual growth of 17%, while coal added less than 1 GW – a 78% annual decline. Solar and wind accounted for 92% of total capacity additions, while coal only 5%.

Rajasthan added 6.7 GW solar and wind last year representing 43% of the country's total solar and wind capacity deployments in 2021 which, as Ember points out, was the largest ever annual combined solar and wind capacity addition for any state to date.

Going forward, both Rajasthan and Gujarat are expected to account for largest additions of these 2 power generation sources with their ambitious 2030 renewable energy targets of 90 GW and 61.4 GW, respectively. For Rajasthan to achieve the 2030 target, it will need to install 8.6 GW renewable energy capacity annually for the next 8 years to go up from 21 GW at the end of 2022. For Gujarat, the annual additions should be around 5.4 GW to go up from 18.6 GW at 2022-end.

"As the country presides over the G20 presidency this year, India is well-positioned to take climate leadership as a prime example on the possibilities of enabling clean power generation by unleashing solar and wind power," added Lee.

Things are likely to progress at a rapid speed for India in the current year as well after the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) gave an exemption to developers from using only ALMM listed modules for their projects till March 2024 (see India Provides Relief From ALMM Obligation).