Share of Renewable Energy in India’s Energy mix now at 26%: CEA

The share of renewable energy in India’s energy mix has increased from 23% to 26% in the April-August period this fiscal, CEA has confirmed.

The share of renewable energy in India’s energy mix has increased from 23 percent to 26 percent in the April-August period this fiscal, a senior official at the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has confirmed. The share of clean energy increased at a time when the power sector witnessed sluggish demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clarified.

“The share of renewable energy has increased from 23 percent to 26 percent from April to August 2020,” Central Electricity Authority (CEA) chairman Prakash Mhaske said at a CII event. He also said that India will reach the target of carbon emission reduction by 30-33 percent before the pledged year of 2030.

Union Power Ministry‘s joint secretary Ghanshyam Prasad said though the country aims at 40 percent of its installed electricity capacity to be renewable or nuclear by 2030, thermal power will have a substantial share in the power generation mix.

Recently, we had reported that India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) had maintained a negative outlook on India’s energy and infrastructure for the second half of FY2021, stemming from a likely low demand, driven by low thermal plant load factor and subdued wind generations, and the resultant impact on coverage metrics. However, amidst all the negatives – the solar sector outlook has actually been revised to stable from negative.

The report added on the solar sector that the solar generation in 1Q FY21 was slightly lower (3 percent-4 percent) than that of 1QFY20. Seasonal variations to some extent depending on the monsoon duration in a year are not unusual for solar projects. Project and grid availability has been above 95 percent for most of the portfolio. Sporadic instances of grid issues because of overloading at the substations belonging to intrastate transmission systems and tracker underperformance have led to significant deviation in generation compared to estimates in few projects.

For the wind sector, the outlook has maintained a negative rating.

The report added that there was an unusual 15 percent YoY fall in power generation in 5MFY21, because of a fall in wind speed, despite a 6 percent increase in installed capacity. Historically, generation during April-August had a share of about 60 percent of the annual generation and by September, the share had been about 70 percent of the annual generation. Thus, the underperformance to date might have an impact on the annual generation in the range of 10 percent-12 percent, on all India basis.