Indian Renewable Sector did reasonably well in 2019 given the Economic Conditions

The Indian renewable energy sector saw a decent performance in 2019 despite the headwinds facing the Indian economy with growth slowing down to multi-year lows. The Indian solar capacity increased by 7.3 GW as per Mercom and there was another 25 GW plus of solar projects under construction which means that the growth in the coming years will be reasonably good, despite the COVID crisis.

The solar rooftop sector also saw a good growth of 1.5 GW which was up 30% for the year, as per BTI mainly driven by the industrial and commercial sector which accounts for more than 75% of the overall rooftop solar capacity in India of around 5.4 GW. The residential rooftop solar sector has not really moved due to multiple issues such as a lack of awareness, red tape of utilities, and problems in financing.

The Indian wind sector like the solar sector saw a decline in installations but made a decent 2 GW plus of installations mainly driven by the central government tenders. However, the prospects of wind energy look bleak as solar energy has become cheaper and more versatile when compared to wind energy. Solar energy is already outrunning the wind sector with a 3.5x more capacity added in 2019. This could become greater as solar energy becomes cheaper and the DRE efforts of the government in the solar pumps and rooftop sector start to bear fruit.

The equipment suppliers to the Indian renewable energy sector continue to be dominated by the Chinese with Trina, Risen, and other leading module suppliers while inverters are led by Huawei, Growatt, Sungrow, and others. While the Indian government is trying to push domestic suppliers over the Chinese ones, the cost advantage of the Chinese companies is quite substantial over the Indian companies making it very difficult for the Indian companies to make a big mark here. While the wind energy sector has good Indian companies, the solar sector is struggling with inverters being completely dominated by foreign players. The developers and EPC companies are mostly Indian but the developers again are mostly owned by western private equity and investment banks who see huge growth potential and returns in the Indian green energy sector.