Something exciting happened last year. The cumulative install power capacity from solar exceeded that of wind. It happened due to the increasing solar installation in recent years, and we expect the same trend to continue going forward. Another exciting milestone is the percentage of renewable energy’s total contribution to the cumulative installed power mix. In India, almost 36.7% comes from renewable energy that includes Large hydro (12.2%). It is good news for electric vehicles, electric trains, and electric boats that use energy from the grid to replace fossil fuel.
While we have reasons to cheer, there were some setbacks last year. The new installation of solar reduced by 56% in 2020 compared to 2019. While we can attribute ChinaVirus as a reason, countries like China and the USA had significant growth. The first quarter of 2020 shows signs of reversal in this trend, and we hope solar would significantly grow this year.
We all hope that renewable energy will replace coal, gas, diesel, and other fossil fuels very soon. Storage technologies like hydrogen will play an important role. The world will then be a much better place.