India's Central Electricity Authority revealed in its installed capacity report that the country's renewable energy capacity has exceeded 168 GW, but considering India's 2030 goals, the pace of renewable energy expansion is not satisfactory. As of January 31, 2023, India had an installed renewable energy capacity of 168.399 MW. The national installed capacity of solar energy is 63.8 GW, and the installed capacity of wind power is about to reach 42 GW.

Excluding hydropower, renewables produced only 121,549 MW. The Indian government has set a target of 175 GW by 2022, excluding large hydropower projects. India should install 100 GW of solar, 60 GW of wind, 10 GW of bioenergy and 5 GW of small hydro. Solar and wind alone should reach 160 GW, but actual installations are nowhere near the country's missed targets. Current renewable energy capacity is about 16 GW higher than installed capacity in the same period in 2022. On January 31, 2022, renewable energy was 105 GW.

Coal power generation, which was supposed to give way to renewables and steadily decline, has actually grown. As of January 31, 2023, coal power generation increased by 536 MW year-on-year. India has a total installed capacity of 411 GW, with fossil fuels including coal, diesel, natural gas and lignite accounting for more than 236 GW.

According to the CEA, the total new solar capacity installed in January was just 590 MW, while the new wind power capacity was only 53 MW. This compares with 95 MW of new solar capacity added in January 2022, a full 38% drop. This translates into the fact that, while the share of renewables in the energy basket is rising, electricity generation based on fossil fuels has increased in absolute volume.

There are large regional differences in the distribution of renewable energy generation, including large hydropower, in the country. The southern region as a whole has surpassed the 61 GW mark, while the eastern and northeastern regions combined are only 9 GW. Karnataka tops the list of states for renewable energy with 20.102 MW, followed by Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.Editor/XingWentao