India is one of the world’ most densely-populated countries, with little room for sprawling solar farms in most of the country. Yet, it is managing to expand its supply of solar power a lot, reports PV Magazine:
India added 24.5 GW of solar and 3.4 GW of wind capacity in 2024, doubling solar installations and increasing wind capacity by 21% from 2023, according to JMK Research & Analytics. These additions brought India’s total renewable energy capacity to 209.44 GW, with solar accounting for 47% of the total.
The nation’s 24.5 GW of solar capacity additions included 18.5 GW of utility-scale PV, 4.59 GW of rooftop systems, and 1.48 GW of off-grid installations…
Utility-scale additions nearly tripled from 2023, while rooftop and off-grid installations rose 53% and 197%, respectively, driven by the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, which spurred 700,000 rooftop installations in 10 months.
India’s ability to do this is striking, because it has 1,275 people per square mile. That’s about as dense as American cities like Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia.
Yet, India’s Bhadla Solar Park covers 14,000 acres — about 22 square miles. It’s in India’s arid Rajasthan state, which contains the Thar Desert.
India has also managed to double its tiger population in a little over a decade, even as its human population grew by more than 200 million people. The number of tigers in India grew from about 1,700 tigers in 2010 to around 3,700 tigers in 2022. India is home to three-quarters of the world’s tigers.
