India’s renewable energy capacity crosses 100 gigawatts

India’s renewable energy capacity has crossed the milestone of 100 gigawatts (GW), the government said in a statement on Thursday. “Today India stands at 4th position in the world in terms of installed RE capacity, 5th in solar, and 4th in wind in terms of installed capacity,” the statement added.

This is an important milestone given India has a power generation capacity of 383.73 GW. While the country has been resisting the pressure of declaring a net-zero emission goal and calling out nations on their carbon-neutral intent announcements, its green energy trajectory has been on an upswing.

“Another landmark day in the history of the Indian Power Sector. Our installed Renewable Energy capacity (excluding large Hydro) has crossed 1,00,000 Megawatts. Under the visionary leadership of PM @narendramodi Ji, we shall continue to be global leaders in Energy Transition,” Union power and new and renewable energy minister Raj Kumar Singh said in a tweet.

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The statement said while 100 GW has been installed, 50 GW is under installation and 27 GW is under tendering. “India has also enhanced its ambition to install 450 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. If large hydro is included the installed RE capacity increases to 146 GW.”

The government’s plans face the problem of the paucity of funds. According to a Parliamentary report released in March, India needs ₹2,61,000 crore more to fund the balance energy capacity and achieve the target of 175 GW by 2022. However, the average annual investment in this sector has been as low as ₹82,300 crore over the last five years.

The report said since the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) is the only dedicated public sector financial institution for financing renewable energy projects, it must gear up to take up the extra responsibility. It said that the IREDA should make available necessary capital for installation of renewable energy projects so that they are not held up due to non-availability of funds.

The report asked the ministry of new and renewable energy to mobilise “more long-term financing and concessional loans through multilateral and bilateral agencies as far as possible”.