Renewable energy capacity addition in the country seems to have hit the slow phase, as the first half of current fiscal has seen only modest addition and the new capacity added into the grid was less than a third of the target.

During April-September, India saw grid-interactive new capacity addition of 1,222 mw from various renewable energy sources. Though the second quarter of current fiscal saw higher capacity addition of 727 mw, when compared with 495 mw in Q1, the overall new capacity addition during H1 was not even half of the capacity target of 4,125 mw for the current fiscal.

“Renewable story has been somewhat muted in the last quarter. The big news is the fall in wind capacity additions, a direct impact of the withdrawal of accelerated depreciation. There has been some progress on the solar front, with Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh announcing their solar policies,” Sanjay Chakrabarti, cleantech sector leader, Ernst & Young India, said.

Of the 1,222 mw new capacity added during H1FY13, wind sector contributed about 839 mw, while the rest was contr­i­buted by baggase cogeneration, solar, biomass, small hydro and waste-to-power at 147 mw, 104 mw, 76 mw, 51 mw and 4 mw respectively. Also, 53 mw of off-grid/ captive power generation capacity from different green energy sources were also added during the first half, according to ministry of new and renewable energy. Ind­ia’s cumulative grid-interactive renewable energy inst­alled capacity stood at 26,137 mw as on September 30.