Solar needs an aggressive push to reach the 2022 target.

• Position: India's solar energy target

India's plans of reaching 100 Gigawatt (GW) of solar installations by 2022 may fall short of the target by almost 30 per cent, unless further aggressive incentives are offered and focus is given more on rooftop installations, experts say. A recent Mercom India Research report estimated India's cumulative installed solar capacity reached 30 GW at the end of the first quarter of 2019. However, rooftop installations still only make up 12 per cent of total solar installations and the country has achieved only 9 per cent of its targeted rooftop capacity addition of 40 GW by 2022.

Despite the hype and incentives, solar installations in the country are slowing down. Though the first quarter of 2019 saw a 4 per cent jump in installations to 1,737 megawatt (MW) but when compared to the 1,638 MW installed in Q4 2018, it was down 49 per cent compared to 3,377 MW added in the first quarter of 2018.

Investments in the sector were over $2.8 billion in the first...