India’s solar capacity addition in 2019 reported a 12 per cent year-on-year decline according to a study by Mercom.
The report by Mercom said that solar installations of 7.3 GW were recorded in India during 2019. This included both ground-mounted and rooftop solar. This addition was 12 per cent lower than the achievement in 2018.
Total large-scale capacity additions amounted to 6.2 GW in 2019. Large-scale installations represented 85 per cent of the total installations while rooftop solar accounted for the remaining 15 per cent.
Karnataka was the leader in terms of solar capacity additions in 2019.
The country’s cumulative solar power capacity as of end-2019 was 35.7 GW. Out of this, around 31.3 GW was accounted by large-scale installations.
“Land acquisition, transmission, and successfully acquiring approvals remain a challenge to commission large-scale projects on time,” the Mercom report observed.
Karnataka leads: Karnataka was the leader in terms of new solar capacity added in 2019. The southern coastal state accounted for 29 per cent of the total solar capacity added pan-India, in 2019. Rajasthan came next in order followed by Tamil Nadu.
Top developers: ReNew Power, NLC India, and Azure Power emerged as the top utility-scale solar project developers in India in terms of installed capacity in 2019, according to Mercom. These three together accounted for nearly 35 per cent of total large-scale installations in 2019.
The top ten utility-scale project developers in 2019 accounted for approximately 70% of installed capacity as of end-2019. Of the 6.2 GW of large-scale capacity additions in 2019, the top ten developers had a share of 4.3 GW.
While three companies installed more than 500 MW, none of the developers installed more than a GW in a year when utility-scale solar installations declined year-over-year by 7 per cent.
According to Mercom, Adani, ACME Solar, and ReNew Power were the top three utility-scale solar project developers in terms of overall cumulative installed capacity as of end-December 2019. Three developers in India have installed more than 2 GW each, and another five developers have installed more than 1 GW of large-scale projects each.
In terms of the utility-scale project pipeline, Azure Power had the largest development pipeline followed by SB Energy, NTPC, ACME Solar, and ReNew Power. Three developers have a project pipeline of more than 2 GW, and four developers have a pipeline of over 1 GW each, Mercom said.
Rooftop solar installations fell in 2019, the first time in five years.
Rooftop solar
Tata Power Solar, Fourth Partner Energy, and Azure Power emerged as the top solar rooftop installers in India in 2019, according to Mercom. Together, these three installers accounted for nearly 22 per cent of total rooftop installations in 2019. In 2019, India added around 1.1 GW of solar rooftop capacity, a 33 per cent decline compared to 2018 installations. Rooftop solar installations in 2019 declined for the first time in five years, the Mercom said in its report.
