Slashdot Mirror
India Eyeing a New Monster 100GW Solar-Capacity Goal (arstechnica.com)
AmiMoJo writes: In a confirmed report India's energy minister suggested that the country is considering issuing a tender for 100 gigawatts of solar energy, which may be tied to solar panel-manufacturing buildout. In 2015, India set a goal to reach 100GW of solar capacity as part of its larger aim of 175GW of renewable energy in general by 2022. This latest 100GW tender would be for a 2030 or 2035 target.
The existing goal is ambitious, so a stretch goal further into the future is even more so. The country's current total solar capacity is just 24.4GW, (for context, as of this month the US has about 55.9GW of installed solar capacity total) but it's growing quickly. Utility-scale solar capacity grew by 72 percent in the previous year.
The existing goal is ambitious, so a stretch goal further into the future is even more so. The country's current total solar capacity is just 24.4GW, (for context, as of this month the US has about 55.9GW of installed solar capacity total) but it's growing quickly. Utility-scale solar capacity grew by 72 percent in the previous year.
What matters is actual output, and in India that is around 15-19%. So installing 100 GW of "capacity" really means installing around 15-19 GW of actual generation
That's an interesting point, but that data seems to be from 2013 so it seems like upcoming generation would be quite a bit better.
This article on Wikipedia indicates that even currently solar generation exceeds the 2% figure you gave, it's at 2.9% now - so essentially an order of magnitude expansion should be a pretty decent amount of actual output.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley