New Delhi: India’s renewable energy sector is facing obstacles including weak demand for tenders, power agreement delays and project cancellations, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said on Thursday.
The country issued a record 73 gigawatts of utility-scale renewable energy tenders in 2024, but about 8.5 GW was undersubscribed - five times higher than in 2023 - amid lower demand due to complex tender structures and delays in interstate transmission readiness, IEEFA said in a report.
India’s cumulative unsigned power sale agreement capacity has exceeded 40 GW, with tenders from top clean energy agency Solar Energy Corporation of India alone accounting for about 12 GW, IEEFA, which tracks and examines issues on energy markets and policies, said.
Meanwhile, about 38.3 GW of capacity was cancelled from 2020 to 2024 - 19% of the total - due to tender design issues, location or technical challenges, undersubscription and delays in signing power supply agreements, the report added. “Delays in project implementation pose a significant challenge to India’s renewable energy target for 2030,” said Ashita Srivastava, senior research associate at JMK Research & co-author of the report.