India confirmed plans for massive wind and solar tendering by March 2020 as it announced it has reached installed capacities of 35GW and 24.3GW respectively for the two sources.

The country’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) said the tender programme is designed to leave a two-year window for project execution ending with 60GW of wind and 100GW of solar in place.

MNRE released updated figures to the end of October 2018 showing 35GW of wind in place, 7GW under implementation and 2.4GW tendered – a total national pipeline of 44.4GW.

For solar, the tally was 24.3GW installed, 13.8GW under implementation and 22.8GW tendered – a total pipeline of 61GW.

Closing the gap between the current pipeline and the 2022 target is likely to keep Indian policymakers busy over the next 15 months, as it sets out to give “ assurance to the renewable energy developers and investors community about long term commitment and planning”.

India is also laying the groundwork for offshore wind and floating PV to play a part in boosting its renewables base.

The tender programme to date has run into issues including availability of transmission capacity, tariff caps and availability of finance for successful bidders.

That has led some analysts to question whether the targets – which officials have on occasions talked about exceeding – will be met.

Financial rating agency ICRA said in a recent note that meeting the targets would be “a challenge, in view of the difficulties being faced by developers in securing connectivity and open access to inter-state transmission network”.

The most recent tender, a debut process to award wind-solar hybrid capacity, was initially launched with a view to awarding 2.5GW but ended up allocating 840MW to just two bidders.

However, MNRE said meeting the 2022 goals would help India “become one of the largest green energy producers in the world, even surpassing several developed countries”.

The latest figures show a total of 73.3GW of renewables accounting for 21% of electricity generation – still dominated by thermal sources with 64%.

Transition

India set for 2022 dash with wind and solar tender spree