India may fail to achieve target in Solar projects.

New Delhi: In spite of a sizeable increase in India’s solar generation capacity, the country might still not be able to meet the 100 gigawatt (GW) solar target by 2022, Rishab Shreshta, solar analyst at research and consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie said on Thursday. 

“As bid prices become stable and costs continue to drop, long-term development remains positive but still not sufficient to meet the 100-GW solar target by 2022. India faces short-term ambiguity due to the imposing of various taxes and levies on solar products, the cancellation of tenders and tariff renegotiations,” said Shreshta.


“Renewables accounted for 9.7 GW of the total increase of 13 GW, highlighting the significant investment flowing into the sector. India is and will be the third-largest solar market globally in 2018 and 2019, respectively,” the research firm added.

It added that the year-on-year growth rate of annual solar installed capacity is expected to reduce to over one per cent in 2018, from 63 per cent in 2017, and expected to rebound to over 12 per cent in 2019.

“Despite strong domestic demand and safeguard duties on imported solar modules, domestic solar manufacturers still struggle to compete with foreign suppliers,” added Shreshta.

According to WoodMac, the 7.2 per cent annual growth in grid-connected power demand helped improve the capacity factor for all fuels in 2018.

The GDP and industrial production growth continued to drive electricity demand in India. WoodMac has expected electricity generation to grow 5 per cent year-on- year in 2019.[ETEnergy World]