A parliamentary panel has attributed low installation of solar roof-top and wind energy projects as key reasons for the shortfall in achieving India’s renewable energy capacity target of 175 GW by 2022.

India set an ambitious target of installing 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by the year 2022, which included 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from bio-power and 5 GW from small hydro-power.

However, a renewable energy capacity of 120.90 GW has been installed in the country as of 31st December 2022 which is about 69 per cent of the overall target, the Standing Committee on Energy said in a report.

“Keeping in view the fact that renewable energy installed capacity has increased by more than 236 per cent since 2014, this is indeed a commendable achievement. However, it should also be mentioned that whatever shortfall has occurred in achievement of the target that is because of low installation of solar roof-tops and wind energy projects,” the committee said.

Keeping in view India’s commitment to increase our non-fossil fuel based energy capacity to 500 GW by the year 2030, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy must ramp up its pace for timely achievement of targets, it suggested.

A strict timeline should be imposed for approvals/rejection of applications, installation of net-meter, inspection of the system, etc. By the discoms and reasons should mandatorily be provided by them in case of rejection of application on the national portal, the committee said.

Discoms may be incentivized so that their apprehensions regarding losing their high-paying consumers because of the installation of solar rooftops are addressed and they positively participate in the programme.