The share of renewable energy in India’s energy mix decreased marginally from 11.4 per cent in the second quarter of financial year 2019-2020 to 10.7 per cent in the same period of the current fiscal.

“A prominent reason for the decline was the unseasonable and sharp reduction in wind speeds in resource-rich States (Gujarat, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu), leading to an approximately 41 per cent reduction in wind generation in July 2020 compared with July 2019. The second quarter typically records the highest wind energy generation every year,” said the latest edition of the CEEW Centre for Energy Finance’s quarterly Market Handbook.

The handbook also noted that 3.2 GW of renewables were auctioned in the second quarter of the current fiscal, compared with 4.4 GW in the fiscal quarter. The first-quarter numbers do not include the 8 GW sanctioned capacity which was part of a manufacturing-linked upsizing of a solar auction from an earlier quarter.

Encouraging numbers

According to the Council on Energy Environment and Water (CEEW), the auctions for blended generation mixes have risen in the last quarter. Auctioning blended solar and wind projects is aimed at improving the transmission infrastructure utilisation with higher capacity utilisation.

The share of the top five developers in the total project capacity sanctioned also increased to 84 per cent this quarter compared with 81 per cent in the previous quarter. This is expected to remain high going forward, the CEEW handbook added.