Is Solar Replacing Coal Power In India?

By Paul Homewood

h/t Matthew Stockford

It’s sometimes good to return to old stories, such as this one in the Independent in May 2017, particularly when the same old claims are still being bandied around:

India has cancelled plans to build nearly 14 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations – about the same as the total amount in the UK – with the price for solar electricity “free falling” to levels once considered impossible.

Analyst Tim Buckley said the shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuel and towards solar in India would have “profound” implications on global energy markets.

According to his article on the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis’s website, 13.7GW of planned coal power projects have been cancelled so far this month – in a stark indication of the pace of change.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/india-solar-power-electricity-cancels-coal-fired-power-stations-record-low-a7751916.html

So what has happened since then?

In the last two financial years, 14 GW of new thermal capacity has been added (essentially all coal), bringing total coal capacity up to 192 GW:

http://www.cea.nic.in/monthlyexesummary.html

And the Federal Power Ministry are expecting coal capacity to grow to 238 GW within the next three years:

https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/08/05/india-expects-coal-capacity-to-swell-by-a-fifth-in-three-years/

Solar power definitely has a role to play, but as Mr Prasad noted in the article above:

“If we have to meet demand and address the intermittencies we have with solar and wind, we have no choice but to keep depending on coal-based generation in the near future.”

Which rather sums it up neatly.