Sunny Side Up

Solar power, with policy pushes and cutdowns in costs, is looking at a good run in 2018 and beyond. But issues in ancillary sectors could take the sheen off

- Sarang Shidore

WITH THE COMING OF THE NEW YEAR comes the good news that India’s installed capacity in renewable electricity crossed 62 GW in November 2017 in an overall electricity portfolio of 333 GW, thus representing nearly 19 per cent of the total. The 62 GW number includes 16.6 GW of solar and 32.7 GW wind, with small hydropower and biopower making up the rest.

While wind remains the biggest source in the renewables category, solar has been one of India’s major success stories in which outcomes on the ground have well exceeded expectations of only a few years ago. Market factors have undoubtedly facilitated the solar surge—module prices have crashed 70 per cent in the past eight years and other ‘balance-of-system’ costs have also fallen through economies of scale and learning.

But government policy has been arguably even more important than market dynamics. India has had a national solar mission (NSM) since 2010 with a target of 20 GW to be achieved in 2022. But in a bold decision that caught most observers by surprise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi quintupled this target to 100 GW shortly after coming to power in 2014. This enhanced target formed an implicit part of the formal Indian commitment under the Paris Climate Agreement (signed in December 2015) to achieve at least 40 per cent non-fossil fuel capacity (which includes renewables, nuclear and large hydropower) in electricity generation by 2030.