Solar overtakes wind in installed capacity in India: GlobalData

India solar and wind installation forecast

Solar PV has overtaken the wind installed capacity to emerge as the top clean energy producer in India as of January 2021, according to GlobalData.

Solar PV, including ground-mounted and rooftop, reached 38.8GW in January 2021 as against the 38.7GW wind, according to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. Solar PV is likely to maintain its lead and further grow to an estimated newly-built capacity of 107GW between 2021-2030 against the likely wind capacity of 64GW.

“Within a span of six years starting in 2011, solar PV could only reach 40 percent of the total wind installed capacity in 2016. However, its installation capacity reached on par with wind by the end of 2020 and then overtook by the end of Jan 2021,” Ankit Mathur, practice head of Power at GlobalData, said.

Some of the reasons for this exponential growth are the presence of abundant solar PV resources spread across the various states, declining equipment and development costs, smaller gestation period and a rigorous focused push by the government.

The cost factor plays a key role in solar getting preference over wind. The drop in the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for RE technologies over the last decade has been significant in the country. The drop in the LCOE for wind has been around 65 percent compared to 85 percent drop in solar.