Only 9% of renewables announced since 2018 currently being installed: Report

Among the 84,408 mega-watt (MW) of large-scale renewable energy projects announced since the beginning of 2018, only 8,039 MW are currently under-construction and the remaining capacities are still under various stages of implementation, a report jointly released by Ficci and Ernst & Young pointed.

The report, which tracked the development of 332 renewable energy projects of 84,408 MW capacity announced since 2018, found out that tariffs have already been discovered through auctions for 57,154 MW renewable energy projects, but these are under various stages of signing power purchase agreement (PPA), getting approvals from regulators, completing financial closure, land acquisition and seeking permission for grid interconnection.

Currently the installed renewable energy capacity in the country is 95,656 MW, and the report says that cumulative capacity addition in 2021 and 2022 is expected to be 17,100 MW. This pace makes it impossible to achieve the target of 1,75,000 MW of renewable energy capacity by 2022-end.

As FE reported earlier, of the 1,43,000 MW of tenders floated for building solar capacities since FY17, around 78,000 MW have been cancelled. Discoms had developed cold feet on buying power from these projects at tariffs discovered under auctions after much lower prices discovered under subsequent auctions.

In the hope of finding better tariffs, Uttar Pradesh has recently cancelled the February, 2020 auction for 184 MW of solar power plants, joining the list of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh that have taken similar steps.