The overall share of renewable energy (including large hydro projects) in the country’s installed power capacity mix stood at 138.27 GW, with a total share of 36.7% at the end of 2020, as per data from the Central Energy Authority (CEA), the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), and Mercom’s India Solar Project Tracker.

The share of renewable energy was a marginal increase from the previous quarter when total renewable installations stood at 136.29 GW with a share of 36.4%. At the end of December 2019, the installed renewable energy (including large hydro projects) capacity stood at 133.17 GW, holding 35.9%.

Wind installations rose marginally and stood at 38.6 GW at the end of Q4 2020, up from 38.1 GW in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, bio-power held 2.7%, small hydropower held 1.3%, and waste-to-power projects held a 0.04% share – mostly unchanged from the previous quarter.

Conventional Energy 

At the end of Q4 2020, thermal-based power sources had a cumulative installation base of 238.4 GW, dominating the power market with a 63.3% share – a small dip from the previous quarter’s 63.6%. This segment included power generated from thermal-based sources, including coal (53%), gas (6.6%), nuclear (1.8%), lignite (1.7%), and diesel (0.14%).

Coal continued to hold the largest share in the country’s power mix with 53.1% with nearly 199.9 GW of installations. While the overall market share for coal slipped slightly from 53.3% previously, the installed coal capacity rose slightly from 199.6 GW in the previous quarter. Large hydropower projects had the second-largest share accounting for 12.2% of the power mix with about 45.8 GW of installations.

Installations of gas, nuclear, lignite, and diesel-based power projects remained stagnant from the previous quarter at 24.9 GW, 6.8 GW, 6.3 GW, and 509.7 MW, respectively.