GANDHINAGAR, Sept 18: India will connect a record 35 gigawatts (GW) of solar and wind energy capacity to its grid during the year ending March 2025, a top bureaucrat told Reuters, as it scrambles to achieve its 2030 clean energy target after falling short of a much publicised 2022 renewables goal.
The world's fastest growing major economy has prioritised coal to address a surge in power demand in recent years, with growth in coal-fired power output expected to outpace renewable energy generation this year.
Commissioning of large solar farms has slowed in recent years and resulted in solar power generation growing at the slowest pace in six years during the first half of 2024.
However India, the world's third largest solar power producer, expects that to change starting this fiscal year, when it sees fresh additions of 30 GW of solar capacity, Bhupinder Singh Bhalla, the top bureaucrat at India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy told Reuters.
The country will also add about 5 GW of new wind capacity, he said.
India added a total of 10 GW of renewable capacity in April-August, the first five months of this fiscal year, taking its total to about 153 GW, government data showed.
"We cannot provide an exact number for next year (2025-26), but we will definitely overtake this year's capacity (addition)," Bhalla said on the sidelines of RE-Invest, India's biggest renewable energy conference. Bhalla also said there was a "lot of market demand for battery-linked storage projects," adding that more tenders for such projects can be expected going forward. —Reuters
