“Green energy like solar power would power India as 175 gigawatt (G) of electricity is expected to be generated from renewable sources.”- Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
India has targeted to complete its 100 GW of installed capacity by 2020 in order to achieve 175 GW renewable energy capacity target by 2022. The 100 GW target include utilities and rooftop solar installation in which 60 GW is to come from utilities and 40 GW from rooftop solar installations. While the 60 GW target may can be achievable with the help of auction timeline, the country is showing poor performance in rooftop solar installation.
India has installed 19.58 GW of solar power generation capacity till February, 2018. The government is very close to achieving 20GW in 2017-18. However, the officials reported that Indian solar panel manufacturing capacity is not sufficient. Solar panel installation in the country is partially dependent on import from mass manufacturer present in other countries. Domestic solar panel/equipment manufacturers are providing solar panels but, it is not in sufficient number. To achieve 100GW target by 2020, there is high demand for solar panels/equipment where as supply is comparatively low.
The realization of unfortunate progress toward the 100 GW operational solar power capacity by 2022 has put Indian government in tension. The government is making sure that this target should be met in the remaining months. Government is taking initiatives like auction. R.K. Singh, the Minister for New & Renewable Energy recently announced that the government will auction 77 GW of solar power capacity by March 2022. To achieve 100 GW grid connected capacities by 2022, the Indian government has decided to auction 30 GW solar energy capacities each in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
“If the Indian government follows to auction timeline and fully auctions 77 GW capacity by 2020, it would be easy for India to achieve 100-gigawatt target.”- OMR analytes
Further, to boost the installation of rooftop solar power in the country, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is implementing Grid Connected Rooftop Solar (RTS) Power Programme. Rooftop solar panel installation target was set-up to achieve 40GW of rooftop solar capacity by 2022. Rooftop solar panel has been the fastest-growing segment within India’s renewable energy sector in 2017, but it is still not growing at the fastest rate, which is the major concern for the Indian government. The Indian government has silently trimmed its 5,000 MW target for FY 2017-18 to only 1,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity.
The year wise targets (in MW) are as follows:
| Year | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | Total |
| Total Target in MW | 200 | 4800 | 5000 | 6000 | 7000 | 8000 | 9000 | 40000 |
Source: Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
The biggest obstacle in achieving target for rooftop solar panel is that state electricity utilities and distribution companies (discoms) across the country are not helpful as investment in solar panel can hurt their assets. As more industrial and commercial users brings significant revenues to state discoms, yield to solar power, the revenues of electricity generators and distributors would fall.
To achieve the 100GW target by 2022, the Modi Government has to obey its proclaimed target. The government can take support from national and international solar panel manufacturers, to overcome the gap between demand and supply in the solar panel market. There is scope for the country to achieve the target. If there is proper support by discoms and state electricity utilities, the 40 GW rooftop solar panel target will be achieved.