India has recently announced an ambitious plan through which it intends to install solar panels on 1 crore houses, but the country has already taken big strides in adding to its solar power capacity.
India added a record 10 GW of solar capacity in the first quarter of 2024, a Mercom report has said. This is the country’s highest quarterly installation to date. The 10 GW capacity that was added in the last quarter is an astonishing 400 more than the 2 GW solar capacity that was added in the same quarter last year.
The 10 GW addition is a blowout for India’s solar sector. Over the last seven years, the highest solar power India has ever added was 4 GW in the second quarter of 2022. The 10 GW addition in Q1 2024 is more than double that, and proudly stands ouin the graph plotting India’s solar capacity addition over time.
“The surge in installations in Q1 2024 was driven by the commissioning of several delayed projects that had received extensions in previous quarters due to high module prices. Falling module prices and suspending the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) order enabled developers to import modules at lower costs, facilitating project completions,” said Priya Sanjay, Managing Director, Mercom India.
Among Indian states, Rajasthan installed the highest cumulative large-scale solar capacity, which accounted for 29% of the national total. It was followed by Gujarat and Karnataka at 14% each. Overall, solar power accounted for 66 percent of all new power additions in the country this quarter.
While the addition last quarter has broken records, there are indications that this growth could speed up even further. “There is a substantial pipeline of large-scale projects scheduled for 2024, positioning India for a record-breaking year by a significant margin. Assuming stability in policy and supply chains, and if government agencies continue to auction projects and meet the set targets, India is poised to be among the top three solar markets globally,” commented Raj Prabhu, CEO at Mercom Capital Group.