SLOWED RENEWABLE ENERGY INSTALLATIONS

According to a report, the lockdowns slowed renewable energy installations in the country and the pace of such installations is lagging India’s 2022 target.
The report was released by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). IEEFA is a US non-profit corporation.
India stands at 4th position in the world in terms of installed Renewable Energy capacity, 5th in solar and 4th in wind.

Important points:

India has managed to install only 43.94 GW of solar energy capacity till 31st July 2021.
India was to have installed 100 GW of solar energy capacity by March 2023 – 40 GW rooftop solar and 60 GW ground-mounted utility scale.
Only 7 GW of green energy capacity was added in FY 2020/21.
India had set a target of 175 GW renewable power installed capacity by the end of 2022 and 450 GW by 2030.
The amount of the power traded increased by 20% over 2020, by 37% compared to 2019 and by 30% over 2018.
This led to prices on average increasing by 38% compared to 2020, by 8% compared to 2019 and by 11% over 2018.
It hit a new record high of 1,320 lakh tonnes (Mt) and exceeded the monthly averages of the previous five years.
However, an analysis of the daily coal stock position exhibited a “deterioration” as more plants reported supplies were critical.

Suggestions:

The challenge of India’s growing daily peak demand does not require investment in excess baseload thermal capacity.
Instead, the electricity system needed “flexible and dynamic generation solutions” such as battery storage, pumped hydro storage, peaking gas-fired capacity and flexible operation of its existing coal fleet.
Government should accelerate deployment of such sources to help meet peak demand and also balance the grid at a lower cost.
Their prices were falling and so would be cost effective and a buffer against very high prices at the power exchange during peak demand.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

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