Analyzing the falling solar and wind tariffs: Evidence from India
India has committed itself to rapid and large-scale renewable energy (RE) capacity addition. As part of its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, India intends to achieve a 40% share of installed power generation capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030 (UNFCCC NDC Registry 2017). In terms of megawatt capacity, this translates into around 450 GW of RE installed capacity by 2030 (The Hindu BusinessLine 2019). As a stepping stone to the longer-term target, the country has a shorter-term target of setting up 175 GW of RE installed capacity by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2022, including 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind energy capacity (Press Information Bureau, Government of India 2018a). While India’s RE generation capacity had grown rapidly to 75.8 GW by the end of December 2018, including 35.3 GW of wind and 26 GW of solar (both utility scale and rooftop), the country still has a long way to go to meet both the short-term and long-term targets (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India 2019a). While the policy ecosystem in India has both supported deployment and created demand for renewable power, the increasing competitiveness of RE tariffs can greatly facilitate the uptake of RE in the Indian context.
