How will COVID-19 impact renewable energy in India? Exploring challenges, lessons and emerging opportunities

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the Indian renewable solar and power sector, supply chains, and businesses and severely hindered the sustainable energy climate transition. This paper assesses the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on power demand, the financial condition of power distribution companies, impact on electricity generation, increasing share of renewable energy sources, impact on the solar industry, under-construction solar projects and operational projects in India. This study further scrutinized the Indian renewable power and solar sector as a case study and explored issues and challenges currently being faced to manage the consumer load demand, including the actions taken by the utilities/power sector for the smooth operation of the power system. This paper also presents the different policies and regulations by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), providing relief to renewable energy developers with a slew of support measures announced over the last few months. Finally, opinions on post-COVID era strategies for the Indian renewable energy sector are presented to support the government/policymakers/utilities not only to overcome the current crisis but also to overcome future unforeseeable pandemic alike scenario.