India added just 853 MW of solar capacity in third quarter

The solar installation in India is making a slower-than-expected recovery as Covid-related disruption continues to hurt construction progress. Safeguard duty extension and module price increase have added to the pain.

November 26, 2020 Uma Gupta

India’s total solar capacity grew to 40,295 MW by September 30, 2020

Image: Adani

Bridge to India’s latest report, India Solar Compass Q3 2020, has stated that India added just 853 MW of solar power generation capacity in the third quarter (July-September) of the year 2020.

Of the new additions, 71% (603 MW) came from utility-scale solar and 29% (250 MW) from rooftop solar.

With this, India has installed a cumulative solar capacity of 40,295 MW as of September 30, including 33,160 MW utility-scale, 6,130 MW rooftop and 1005 MW off-grid.

Though the capacity addition in Q3 2020 was up 143% QOQ, it was signiﬁcantly below the BTI estimate of 1,621 MW for the quarter due to Covid-related execution issues.

Module prices shot up during the quarter due to supply-side constraints coupled with increasing global demand. According to BTI analysts, this, coupled with safeguard duty extension and Covid-related operational issues, hurt the construction progress.

The BTI report said multi-crystalline module prices increased to US cents 18/W, up from US cents 16.5/W in June 2020. Prices for mono-PERC modules also rose to US cents 21/W from US cents 17.5/W just three months ago.

The report expects project construction activity to pick up gradually with 3.9 GW capacity scheduled to be added in the next six months.

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.