India At High Table Of Clean Energy Superpowers; Investments To Double

New Delhi: As barren arid land gets covered with solar panels and giant windmills dot the coast-line, India made it to the high table of clean energy superpowers with installed capacity crossing 200 gigawatts and projections of investment doubling to over $32 billion in 2025.

According to the International Energy Agency, India’s annual renewable capacity additions through 2030 are expected to increase more quickly than any other major economy, including China. It seeks India’s capacity addition more than quadrupling from 15 GW in 2023 to 62 GW in 2030. By the end of 2024, its installed capacity touched 205 GW.

Alongside, domestic solar PV and wind turbine manufacturing is being scaled up as part of the broader commitment to decarbonise and shift away from fossil fuels. India, which has set 2070 as the target for Net Zero, is aiming 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. To achieve this it is looking to add 50 GW of renewable energy (RE) capacity annually. Talking to media, Union New & Renewable Energy Minister Pralhad Joshi said, “We have installed a total capacity addition of 24.72 GW RE in the country during the last 11 months of 2024 (from 1st January 2024 to 30th November 2024), compared to 11.83 GW capacity addition during the same period last year.” Back-of-envelope calculations show that the RE capacity addition of 50GW will entail an investment of Rs2,75,000 crore or $32.35 billion (at Rs85 per USD) Joshi said that 2024 has been a remarkable year for the RE sector and added, “We are working relentlessly to chart the growth of the sector.”

He informed that in December 2023, as much as 1.23GW RE capacity was added which means that in the entire 2023, 13.06GW of RE capacity was added. The 24.72 GW capacity added from 1st January 2024 to 30th November 2024 includes 20.85 GW Solar Power, 3.22 GW Wind Power, 0.50 GW Bio Power and 0.09 GW Small Hydro Power and 0.06 Large Hydro Power.

It has a share of 86.86 per cent in the total installed power generation capacity added during this period ( Jan to Nov) in the

country (28.46 GW).