Why India may not achieve its 2022 clean energy target

India has come a long way in renewable energy in the past decade. The country’s installed capacity has risen sixfold to nearly 83 gigawatts (1 GW = 1,000 MW). And in the past 5 years, solar power, which is set to become bigger than wind energy within renewables, has seen its capacity grow around 12 times to over 31 GW, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA).

So for the majority of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first term, his government’s target of having 175 GW of installed clean energy capacity by March 2022 did not seem unrealistic. Of that, 100 GW was to be in solar energy, 60 GW in wind projects (the current capacity is 37 GW) and the rest in small hydel (up to 25 MW) and biomass plants.