NEW DELHI: Power Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said India’s solar power generation capacity will double to 22 Gw by the end of the current financial year and more wind power auctions would be conducted in the coming months to push renewable power.
“Solar power generating capacity would be around 22 Gw by the end of this fiscal (from 12 Gw at present),” Goyal said on the sidelines of an event to release a report on integration of renewable in the electricity grid.
The study, developed under the US-India bilateral programme ‘Greening the grid’, confirms the technical and economic viability of integrating 175 Gw of renewable energy into India’s power grid by 2022, and identifies future course of actions that are favourable for such integration.
The decision is in line with the India’s target to generate 100 Gw of solar energy and 60 Gw of wind power capacities by 2022.
Goyal released the first part of the study ‘Pathways to Integrate 175 Gigawatts of Renewable Energy into India’s Electricity Grid’ on Thursday. The second volume, to be released in July, takes a more in-depth look at system operations in the western and southern regions.
He pointed out that the auction for wind power has already begun, which brought down the cost of wind power.” A tender for another 1 Gw is also in process, which would be completed soon, he added.
Goyal noted that solar power tariff had dropped to all-time low of Rs 2.44 per unit in the auction conducted for Bhadla solar park.