Though Gujarat and Rajasthan are at the forefront of solar power development in the country, other states are also making rapid progress in harnessing energy from sun.
Presently, Gujarat and Rajasthan account for over 50 per cent of India’s grid-connected solar energy capacity additions. However, states such as Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are also catching up fast, supported by their solar programmes.
As of February this year, total installed capacity of solar power was 3,383 MW, constituting 10 per cent of total installed renewable power capacity in the country.
Gujarat contributed 949 MW and Rajasthan’s installed capacity was 902 MW. Madhya Pradesh has added 500 MW, while Maharashtra’s commissioned solar power capacity was 334 MW. Other states, that have added more than 100 MW in solar, include Andhra Pradesh (237 MW), Punjab (120) and Tamil Nadu (112 MW).
The country has achieved more than its targets in grid solar and off-grid solar under the Phase-1 (2010-2013) of Solar Mission. Against the target of 1100 MW of grid solar power, 1686 MW of projects (including large plants, rooftops and distribution grid plants) were commissioned.
The Indian government has set an ambitious target of adding 100,000 MW by 2022.
The plan would include large scale deployment of rooftop projects under both net metering and feed in metering to achieve 40,000 MW of capacity till 2022.
Secondly, the Government would lay emphasis on grid connected projects to achieve 40,000 MW by 2022. For this, Solar parks have been set up in Gujarat and Rajasthan, and others have been planned in over 15 states.
Thirdly, the Centre would focus on large scale projects (100 MW minimum.) to generate the remaining 20,000 MW capacity.
