In News: NHPC won ‘Best Globally Competitive Power Company of India – Hydropower and Renewable Energy Sector’ in recognition of its leadership in the hydropower sector with a gross asset class renewable energy capacity of more than 7000 MW, for more than 5000 MW of projects under construction and an ambitious 7000 MW plus plan for Solar capacity addition.
Renewable Energy Sector
Renewable energy will comprise 90 per cent of global electricity capacity expansion in the next five years and much of it will be in India, according to a new study by the autonomous intergovernmental organisation, International Energy Agency (IEA).
China, the European Union and the United States will be three other geographies contributing majorly to this upward trend besides India. This is primarily owing to the favourable policies and market reforms in all four.
Renewable energy’s installed power capacity will grow to 2,400 gigawatts (GW) between 2022 and 2027.
In India
With the addition of 145 gigawatt (GW), India is forecast to almost double its renewable power capacity over 2022-2027.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) accounts for three-quarters of this growth, followed by onshore wind with 15 per cent and hydropower providing almost all the rest.
Two policy measures that India has adopted to promote domestic manufacturing in the solar PV sector include the PLI scheme and raising import duties on modules – are expected to meet the growing demand of the renewable energy industry and help in the diversification of supply chains in the long term.
Hybrid auctions are expected to be an increasingly important growth driver as the penetration of wind and PV technologies in India’s power system grows and grid integration challenges emerge.
Hybrid projects refers to innovative combinations of solar and wind power at a site. It can include solar, wind, and battery or pumped hydro storage. Bundling coal with renewables is also another option.
Storage will play a key role in the hybrid project, particularly to overcome the intermittency of RE and enhance grid balancing.
Clean energy transitions are driving down the costs of energy storage technologies, expected to reduce further with an increase in scale and innovations.
Policy changes in the wind energy sector were also made to accelerate the transition to renewables. In July 2022, the Indian government suspended reverse bidding in wind auctions.
Currently, the government is considering closed-envelope submissions which could raise tariffs for wind energy and make it a more competitive market.
Higher renewable purchase obligations, and specify targets for wind, hydro, and other renewable energy sources (solar, bioenergy), should further encourage power utilities (DISCOM) to procure renewable energy.
Wind energy is a different ball game compared to solar because the good sites are only located in coastal states. Even within a coastal state, there are tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 sites depending on the wind intensity, according to the expert.
Raising the capability of DISCOMs to procure more renewable energy will be crucial to achieving faster growth.
Improving the financial performance of DISCOMs and increasing penalties for non-compliance with renewable purchase obligations should limit delays in signing PPAs with auction winners, making developers and investors more willing to undertake new utility-scale projects.
In addition, offering DISCOMs financial and regulatory incentives to increase rooftop PV deployment in their grids should encourage them to attract tens of millions of potential prosumers by facilitating investment, thereby tripling main-case distributed PV deployment for 2022-2027.
