Economic Survey: Renewable energy account for 10% of electricity generation

The share of renewable energy in installed capacity is 22%

India will likely miss the target of 175GW of renewable energy by 2022, but the growth in renewable energy has been tremendous. The Economic Survey 2021-22 noted that in the last 7.5 years, the country had increased its renewable capacity by 2.9-times, whereas its solar capacity had gone up by 18-times.

While installed capacity addition has been growing, the share of renewables in electricity generation remains muted. Analysis of data from the Economic Survey shows that renewable energy sources account for 22 per cent of the installed capacity. Still, their share in electricity generation has remained at 10 per cent.

Between 2019-20 and 2020-21, renewable energy sources added the most capacity among all energy sources. Total thermal capacity increased 1.6 per cent from 302.23 GW to 307.08 GW between 2019-20 and 2020-21. But renewable energy sources witnessed an 8.1 per cent growth from 91.5 GW to 98.95 GW.

In terms of electricity generation, data indicates that renewable energy was the only category to register an increase, whereas all other categories declined. Thermal generation decreased 4 per cent between 2019-20 and 2020-21, while nuclear energy generation fell 7.4 per cent. Renewables, on the other hand, registered a 6.8 per cent increase.

In its latest commitments to COP, the government had promised to increase the share of renewables to half by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.

In the Energy Statistics last year, the government had said that India’s total renewable energy potential was 1027GW. The government had also said that it shall reach 450GW of renewable capacity by 2030. An earlier analysis by Business Standard had shown that by this standard, the government would reach 45 per cent of its potential renewable energy output within the next eight years.

“Inter-state GEC with target capacity of 3200 circuit kilometer (ckm) transmission lines and 17,000 MVA capacity sub-stations, was completed in March 2020," the survey pointed. The survey said that the second component is Intra-state GEC with a target capacity of 9700 ckm transmission lines and 22,600 MVA capacity sub-stations is expected to be completed by June 2022. The government has initiated green energy projects to create a grid for the future.