Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser India's on-grid solar power development: Historical transitions, present status and future driving forces Enayat A. Moallemi a , Lu Aye a, ⁎ , John M. Webb b , Fjalar J. de Haan a,c , Biju A. George a,d a Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Group, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia b Centre for Transformative Innovation, Faculty of Business and Law, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria 3010, Australia c Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, Melbourne School of Design, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia d Integrated Water and Land Management Program, International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Cairo, Egypt ARTICLE INFO Keywords: On-grid solar electricity Sustainability transitions Renewable electricity India ABSTRACT India with a fast growing demand for electricity and increasing consideration to emissions reduction is investing strongly in renewable electricity generation. Among renewables, the Central and State Governments have set aspirational targets for on-grid solar electricity and legislated several supporting policies to realise these targets. As a result of the favourable political environment, the development of on-grid solar, in terms of the rate of growth in installed capacity, has been increasing in the recent years, and it is expected to continue in the future. This paper aims to investigate the impact of historical transitions of India's electricity sector on the ongoing development of on-grid solar electricity and to explore the prospect of solar sector development in the future. First of all, we investigate how the historical transformation of governmental intervention's approach intertwined with the gradual shift of the source of generation has paved the way for the current achievements in on-grid solar electricity. Second, we envision the future challenges and opportunities for the development of solar sector by looking ahead and discussing the continuity of government's support and the prospective competitions between different sources. We conclude the paper with some required steps to be taken in order to secure the achievement of the targets in solar electricity in the future. 1. Introduction India as the second most populous country is currently experien- cing a steep economic growth and subsequently, a rapidly growing energy demand. In 2012, the country was ranked as the third and fifth highest country in global energy and electricity consumption respec- tively [1]. Urbanisation, economic development of society, the expan- sion of industry and the development of new services have contributed to a sharp increase in electricity demand. The demand is expected to rise even further in the near future (see Figs. 1 and 2). To cover this growing demand, 20 GW of new generation capacity will be required annually by 2020 [2]. The (on-grid) installed capacity from different sources has been increased appreciably in the past couple of years. Despite the high level of electricity generation, the country still suffers from about 10% generation deficit of total electricity demand, which puts almost 300 million people with no access to electricity [3,4]. The country's required electricity is generated in different methods: on-grid which is the main method for urban areas as well as widely used for agriculture and industry, off-grid which is more common for rural areas and captive power plants which are mostly used for industries. Electricity is also being generated from different conven- tional and unconventional sources. In 2014, from the total installed capacity of 255 GW [6], the share of conventional sources is about 70%, where coal alone accounts for about 84% of it. Large hydroelectric and renewables take the second and third rank of the largest installed capacity respectively (see Table 1). The importance of renewable energy in developing countries and, more specifically, in India's electricity sector, has become significantly higher in recent years (see Table 2). On-grid renewables are seen as a new way to address the concerns about the gap between demand and supply, energy security, energy equity with safe and convenient access and the global commitment to emissions reduction [7–9]. In spite of http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.11.032 Received 24 October 2015; Received in revised form 18 July 2016; Accepted 1 November 2016 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: lua@unimelb.edu.au (L. Aye). Abbreviations: CERC, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission; FIT, Feed-in Tariff; GoI, Government of India; JNNSM, Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission; MNRE, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy; MoP, Ministry of Power; NAPCC, National Action Plan on Climate Change; NHPC, National Hydroelectric Power Corporation; NTPC, National Thermal Power Corporation; PoI, Parliament of India; PSU, Public Sector Unit; REC, Renewable Energy Credit; RPO, Renewable Purchase Obligation; SEB, State Electricity Board; SERC, State Electricity Regulatory Commission; SOE, State-Owned Enterprise; TP, National Tariff Policy 2006 Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 69 (2017) 239–247 1364-0321/ Crown Copyright © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. crossmark