India’s renewable energy capacity addition to grow 50% this year on new tenders.

New Delhi: India’s total addition of new renewable energy generation capacity, including both solar and wind resources, is likely to grow by 50 per cent to 15,860 megawatt (Mw) in 2019 mainly on the back of improved tender activity. 

“Solar utility scale capacity addition is expected to cross 10,000 Mw for the first time to register a new record at 10,902 MW. Rooftop solar is expected to have another year of high growth with estimated capacity addition of 2,368 Mw (+49 per cent) but open access solar activity is expected to fall drastically by 63 per cent,” consultancy firm Bridge to India said.

Capacity addition on wind energy side is expected to increase by 18 per cent to 2,300 Mw as projects struggle with land and transmission bottlenecks.

According to Vinay Rustagi, managing director, Bridge to India, the current year is expected to bring some much-needed respite after the slowdown last year. “Capacity addition is expected to jump sharply but this is more due to volatility in tender issuance time-table rather than a sustainable surge. Overall, the sector is bound to continue its struggle with GST, safeguard duty, funding availability and transmission connectivity,” he said.

Floating solar power is expected to get a fillip this year with new auctions of up to 5 gigawatt. 2019 is also expected to lay the foundation for storage market in India with likely announcement of National Storage Mission and tenders with integrated utility scale storage facilities.

“Crucially, in an election year, politics is likely to dominate over reforms and swift resolution of sector problems is unlikely. On the plus side, we do not expect any retreat in the push for renewable energy irrespective of who comes to power,” Rustagi said.

In 2019, module prices are expected to fall further to an average of $0.19 per watt, a decline of 26 per cent over mid-2018 prices but the risk of prices shooting up remains on the back of higher than expected demand from US and China.

Also, solar module manufacturing is expected to witness another tough year despite the imposition of safeguard duty as Indian manufacturers struggle to compete with low import prices and improving technology.