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India is in the midst of a solar energy revolution that’s leading to downward pressure on fossil fuel consumption in the world’s most populated country, new data shows.
Why it matters: With close to 1.5 billion people and a fast-growing economy, India is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. This makes it a key player in the fight to limit global warming to relatively safe levels.
The latest: India installed 17.4 GW of solar capacity in the first nine months of 2024, with utility-scale additions up 161% from a year before.
The country is on track to add around 20GW of solar generating capacity through the full calendar year — nearly double the amount installed in 2023, according to an analysis by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
As of end-September, the country has 91GW of installed solar capacity. The technology accounted for 81% of all new power capacity added in the third quarter of 2024, followed by wind (11%), biomass (6%), hydro (1%), and coal at less than 1%.
Solar now accounts for more than 7% of India’s electricity output, up from less than 3% in 2019, according to data collated by Ember.
This comes amid a surge in clean energy procurement by state agencies and a push by the government to install rooftop solar panels on 10 million homes in order to cut household electricity bills.
Thanks in part to the sharp rise in solar deployments, India’s coal-fired power output fell for a second straight month in September, on an annual basis, according to an analysis by Reuters. Power generated from coal plants fell 5.8% year-on-year in September and 4.9% in August after growing strongly in the first seven months of the year.
Coal’s share of total power generating capacity has declined to 48.1%, per IEEFA data, which shows that India now has 202GW of renewable energy capacity and 8GW of nuclear. The country aims to get to 500GW of low-carbon generating capacity by 2030.
An analysis conducted last year by the Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found that India was unnecessarily approving new coal-fired power plants, even though the pipeline had shrunk considerably. Amid the strong growth in clean energy generation, the country will likely end up with more stranded assets if coal projects go ahead, the organisations argued.
