India's solar capacity grows with 3 GW of new installs in Q1

The Indian solar industry has commissioned 3 GW of new capacity in the first quarter of 2022, bringing the country’s cumulative photovoltaic (PV) installations to 52 GW, according to data by Mercom India Research.

The newly-installed capacity is 50% more than in the year-ago period and exceeds by 21% the new installations from the previous quarter. The quarterly solar additions were responsible for a record 68% of all new power generation capacity in India, which totalled 4.6 GW.

Mercom’s market update shows that the bulk of the solar capacity came from large-scale projects, which totalled 2.7 GW and accounted for 85% of the quarterly deployments. This compares to 1.7 GW of large-scale additions in the previous year and 2.2 GW in the closing quarter of 2021. Around 15% of the overall capacity in the quarter was from rooftop systems.

By state, Rajasthan was the leader in terms of newly-commissioned solar parks and was responsible for 52% of the fresh additions. Gujarat came second with a 18% share, followed by Karnataka with 6%.

India’s utility-scale solar project development pipeline stood at over 54 GW at end-March.

Mercom expects the pace of solar deployments to rise through 2022 and top the record 10 GW of new installations from 2021.

"A little push from the government can help India surpass the 60 GW large-scale solar installation target set for 2022, which will be a great achievement,” said Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group.

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