NEW DELHI: India crossed the milestone of building solar power generation capacity of 100 GW (gigawatts) on January 31, a feat that provides a tangible leg up for its climate action.
Giving credit to prime minister Narendra Modi’s unwavering commitment to a greener future for the achievement, renewable energy minister Pralhad Joshi on Friday said in a social media post the feat lays the ground for chasing the ambitious dream of 500 GW renewable capacity by 2030.
But the 100-GW milestone came three years late due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. After coming to power in 2014, the Modi government had in June 2015 revised the earlier target of 20 GW solar power capacity to 100 GW by 2022.
This was part of Modi’s aim of turning India into a gree energy power house with a total renewable energy capacity of 175 GW. But the pandemic lockdown and subsequent disruption in the supply chain severely hit projects and delayed the target.
Comparing the Modi government’s performance in renewables since 2014 with the preceding 10 years of the UPA government, Joshi said India added 2.82 GW of solar capacity in the 2004-14 period against 100 GW between 2014 and 2025.
Even though India’s solar programme is seen as the largest capcity addition programmes, the achievement is dwarfed when compared to market leader China, which raised its capacity from a little more than 4 GW in 2012 to 886 at present.
