India is set to turn to water for the next wave of renewable energy growth

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As the commercial viability of offshore RE improves in India and inland resources become scarce, experts say existing developers will look to diversify their portfolio by entering into offshore
Aarushi Koundal | ETEnergyWorldUpdated: August 04, 2022, 13:48 IST
New Delhi: A slew of renewable energy projects that operate on the water have been commissioned and announced by public and private sector players in India recently and the trend is set to grow in the coming years as the country firms up focus on floating solar and offshore projects.

According to Mohit Bhargava, chief executive officer, NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd, the next wave of India’s renewable energy growth will be through water. “It is expected that the supply chain for such projects shall get stronger and prices shall come down. We are confident that more and more players will come forward,” he told ETEnergyWorld.

Bhargava also added that the state-owned power giant is on the lookout for large water bodies which can be developed to solve the power needs of the masses. “Since water and land are scarce commodities in India, we need to save as much as possible. We aim for bigger installations and have already tied up with DVC and other utilities for utilising water bodies for the same,” he said.

NTPC has commissioned India’s two largest floating solar projects of 100 megawatts (MW) and 92 MW capacities recently.

As the commercial viability of offshore RE improves in India and inland resources become scarce, industry experts expect that existing RE developers would look to diversify their portfolio by entering into offshore RE.

From a long-term planning perspective, floating solar and offshore wind is important to meet incremental capacity additions, said Pranav Master, director - of energy, at research and rating agency CRISIL.

“As per our analysis, 1.7 GW of floating solar projects are in the pipeline as of January 2022, with a reduction in cost and policy support from the government, tendering activity in floating solar is expected to increase further,” said Somesh Kumar, partner and power and utility leader, EY India.

He added that floating solar looks promising to become a third pillar of the solar PV sector and its market share is likely to accelerate as the technology matures. As the available land resources for developing the utility-scale solar and onshore wind projects get exhausted, there would be an increased focus on the water-based projects.

“The declining costs of floating solar and offshore wind along with the potential for commercialising the emerging ocean energy technologies such as tidal and wave energy could make them an integral part of India’s long-term renewable energy generation mix,” said Tushar Sud, partner, Deloitte India.

With increased project size in the floating solar segment, the project cost has reduced over the years. The difference in capital expenditure of floating solar and ground-mount solar has also reduced from 25 per cent to 10 per cent in the last decade, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Lessons from other markets suggest that floating RE is going to be an important ingredient of the energy transition, according to Kashish Shah, research analyst, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

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