India Solar Statistics 2026: Capacity, Rooftop and Growth

India’s solar numbers get quoted far more often than they get dated. A capacity figure from March turns up in a September article. A nameplate rating gets described as electricity generated. A number from an approved-list page gets reported as national factory output. Each of those is a different quantity, and mixing them produces conclusions that collapse under one follow-up question.

This page gives the published figures with the issuing body and the “as at” date attached to every one, because Indian solar capacity moves by roughly 3 GW a month and an undated number is close to useless.

You get total installed solar capacity and its share of the national mix, the split between utility-scale, rooftop, hybrid and off-grid, a state-wise table, the year-on-year addition trend, actual generation in billion units, a worked capacity utilisation factor calculation, PM Surya Ghar progress against the one crore household target, module and cell manufacturing under the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers and the Production Linked Incentive scheme, the auction tariff record, and India’s standing against the rest of the world.

It also says which of these statistics matters to somebody actually buying a system, and which exist mainly to be quoted from a podium. Where a figure could not be traced to a government document, it has been left out and the gap named.

Short version. India had 168.04 GW of installed solar capacity as at 31 August 2026, split into 123.99 GW ground-mounted, 32.59 GW rooftop, 4.83 GW of hybrid-project solar and 6.63 GW off-grid, according to MNRE. Solar was 30.30% of total installed capacity yet supplied only about 9.5% of electricity generated in 2025-26. Capacity and generation are different quantities, and most misquoted Indian solar statistics confuse the two.

India’s installed solar capacity as at 31 August 2026

The headline number is 168,040.05 MW of cumulative installed solar capacity as at 31 August 2026, published in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s Physical Progress table. Two other government sources carry the identical figure: the Central Electricity Authority’s monthly Installed Capacity report and its Monthly Renewable Energy Generation Report for August 2026. They agree to 0.05 MW because CEA carries MNRE’s renewable numbers directly.

Source: MNRE Physical Progress, “Programme/Scheme wise Cumulative Physical Progress as on 31st August, 2026”, page last updated 8 September 2026. The share column is arithmetic on MNRE’s own figures, not a separate MNRE indicator.

For the national picture, the Central Electricity Authority reports total installed generating capacity of 5,54,544 MW as at 31 August 2026, of which solar was 30.30%, wind 10.55%, coal 40.47% and nuclear 1.58%. CEA prints that percentage column itself. Non-fossil sources together were 54.88%.

Year-on-year capacity addition since 2015-16

India added 44.61 GW of solar in 2025-26, its largest single year, a 42.22% increase on the 2024-25 stock, according to MNRE’s Renewable Energy Statistics 2025-26. That single year added more capacity than the six years from 2018-19 to 2020-21 and 2021-22 to 2022-23 combined.

Sources: cumulative capacity from MNRE’s dated state-wise renewable capacity reports for each 31 March; annual additions from MNRE’s Year-wise Achievement table, except 2025-26, which MNRE states as 44.61 GW in the narrative of Renewable Energy Statistics 2025-26; generation from Central Electricity Authority data reproduced in the same MNRE publication, Table 4.1.

Two cautions on this series. MNRE’s Year-wise Achievement table has no column at all for 2025-26, India’s record solar year, so that addition has to be taken from the Renewable Energy Statistics narrative or derived as 150,260.70 minus 105,646.49. And for context on the earlier baseline, solar stood at just 7.12 GW with 7.45 BU of generation in 2015-16.

Where the new capacity is going, 1 April to 31 August 2026

MNRE reports 17,779.35 MW of solar added in the first five months of FY 2026-27. Comparing its category tables for 31 March 2026 and 31 August 2026 shows how that split by segment, and the four segment additions reconcile to MNRE’s published total exactly.

Sources: 31 March 2026 categories from MNRE Renewable Energy Statistics 2025-26, Table 8.3; 31 August 2026 categories from MNRE’s Physical Progress page. The “added” column is subtraction, and its total matches the 17,779.35 MW that MNRE publishes for 1 April to 31 August 2026.

That reconciliation is the useful part. Rooftop holds 19.4% of the installed stock but took 38.6% of the new capacity in those five months. The mix of what India is building has already shifted well ahead of the mix of what it has built.

State-wise installed solar capacity as at 31 August 2026

Solar capacity in India is concentrated, and it concentrates differently for ground-mounted and rooftop. Rajasthan leads overall on the strength of utility-scale plants. Gujarat leads rooftop by a wide margin. Kerala, Haryana and Delhi have more rooftop than ground-mounted capacity, which inverts the national pattern entirely.

Source: MNRE, “State wise RE Installed Capacity as on 31.08.2026”, linked from the MNRE Physical Progress page. Seventeen of MNRE’s 37 rows are shown, so the listed rows do not sum to the all-India line. Percentage shares are arithmetic.

Two concentration facts worth carrying. Rajasthan and Gujarat together held 47.2% of national solar capacity at 31 August 2026. And every megawatt of India’s 4,829.14 MW of hybrid-project solar sits in only four states: Rajasthan 2,283.30 MW, Gujarat 1,586.03 MW, Andhra Pradesh 600.56 MW and Karnataka 359.25 MW. MNRE separately states that the top five states held 76.28% of total installed solar capacity as at 31 March 2026. For the DISCOM-level reasons behind these gaps, see the state-wise rooftop capacity reference.

Capacity is not generation, and the gap runs about three to one

This is the most common misreading of Indian solar data, and it is worth spelling out. A watt is a power rating. A watt-hour is energy delivered over time. Solar held 30.30% of installed capacity at 31 August 2026 but supplied roughly 9.5% of the electricity India generated in 2025-26.

The generation figures come from the Central Electricity Authority, reproduced in MNRE’s Renewable Energy Statistics 2025-26. India generated 1,840.11 BU in total during 2025-26. Renewables including large hydro contributed 477.79 BU, or 25.97%. Within the wind, solar, small hydro and bio-power group, which totalled 310.59 BU, solar’s 174.76 BU was 56.27%, making it the largest single renewable source by output for the first time.

Solar’s 9.5% share of total generation is arithmetic, not a printed figure. Neither CEA nor MNRE publishes a solar-only generation share. CEA’s own all-India generation total for 2025-26 is 1,847.94 BU because it includes imports from Bhutan, which moves the answer to 9.46%. Either denominator is defensible. State which one you used.

A worked capacity utilisation factor example

Capacity utilisation factor, or CUF, is the ratio of energy actually delivered to the energy a plant would deliver running flat out at nameplate rating for the whole period. Neither CEA nor MNRE publishes an official solar CUF for India, so it has to be computed. Here is the calculation with its inputs and its trap, using a single month so the capacity base is stable.

Inputs, both from the Central Electricity Authority’s Monthly Renewable Energy Generation Report for August 2026:

1. Solar generation during August 2026: 18,629.70 million units (MU).
2. Solar capacity monitored, meaning capacity for which generation data is available, as on 31 August 2026: 140,135.27 MW.
3. Installed solar capacity as on the same date: 168,040.05 MW.
4. Hours in August: 744.

Same month, same generation, and a three percentage point spread purely from the choice of denominator. CEA’s reported solar generation covers roughly 83% of installed solar capacity, so dividing it by the full installed figure biases the answer low. August is also a monsoon month, so neither figure should be annualised.

Run the same calculation across the full financial year and the ambiguity gets worse. Divide 2025-26 solar generation of 174.76 BU by the opening capacity of 105,646.49 MW and you get 18.9%. Divide it by the closing capacity of 150,260.70 MW and you get 13.3%. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions, because 44.61 GW was commissioned during the year and only generated for part of it.

For project work, replace fleet averages with site data. The statewise irradiance guide covers resource variation, and the generation expectations guide covers what a specific system size delivers.

Rooftop solar, and why it still trails utility-scale

Rooftop solar reached 32,595.64 MW at 31 August 2026, up from 25,727.65 MW at 31 March 2026 and 23.16 GW at 31 December 2025. Growth is fast in percentage terms. Yet ground-mounted capacity is still 3.8 times larger, at 123,986.10 MW. The structural reasons are not about subsidy generosity.

Utility-scale projects are procured by one buyer, sited on aggregated land, and financed as single assets. MNRE reports 55 solar parks of 39,973 MW approved across 13 states as on 31 December 2025, of which 15,293 MW of projects were commissioned in 26 parks. One approval decision can carry hundreds of megawatts.

Rooftop is the opposite. A 3 kW system needs a household decision, a registered vendor, a DISCOM approval, a bidirectional meter and a subsidy claim. MNRE removed several of those blockers: technical feasibility requirements were waived, auto load enhancement up to 10 kW was introduced, and the net metering agreement was folded into the National Portal application. All DISCOMs across 36 states and union territories adopted deemed technical feasibility up to 10 kW. Registered vendors grew from around 4,000 at launch to 21,689 by December 2025.

Even with that, per-system throughput caps the segment. This is why rooftop capacity responds to process reform more than to subsidy amount, and why the net metering process remains the real gate on most residential installations.

PM Surya Ghar progress against the one crore household target

PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana targets one crore residential households with rooftop solar by FY 2026-27, with a total outlay of Rs 75,021 crore, according to MNRE’s Annual Report 2025-26. Progress is reported in more than one unit, which is where most confusion comes from.

Sources: MNRE Annual Report 2025-26 for the December 2025 rows; MNRE scheme update reported to Parliament in March 2026 for the March 2026 rows.

Three readings follow. First, on the 26.21 lakh systems installed at 20 March 2026, the scheme had reached about 26% of its one crore target. Second, dividing 9.56 GW by 26.21 lakh systems gives an average system size of roughly 3.65 kW, which is arithmetic on MNRE’s two published figures and matches the 3 kW subsidy cap plus typical oversizing. Third, the 9.56 GW installed under the scheme is about 37% of India’s 25,727.65 MW national rooftop stock at 31 March 2026, so PM Surya Ghar accounts for a large minority of rooftop capacity, not all of it.

Financing terms as at that date were collateral-free loans from nationalised banks at the repo rate plus 50 basis points, which was 5.75% per annum, with tenure up to 10 years. That rate floats with the repo, so it must always be quoted with its date. MNRE also runs a grievance call centre on 15555 in 12 languages. Subsidy slabs, eligibility and state variation are covered in the PM Surya Ghar guide; rules differ by state and DISCOM, and no slab should be treated as assured for a given applicant.

Module and cell manufacturing under ALMM and the PLI scheme

MNRE’s Annual Report 2025-26 records 137 PV module manufacturing plants with a cumulative capacity of about 144 GW per annum, printed as 144,289 MW per year, enlisted under ALMM List-I as on 31 December 2025. For cells, it records 12 plants with about 24 GW per annum, printed as 23,954 MW per year, enlisted under ALMM List-II at the same date. A later MNRE reply in Parliament put the List-I total at 1,72,592 MW for the list dated 1 March 2026.

The Production Linked Incentive scheme for the National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules carries an outlay of Rs 24,000 crore across two tranches, Rs 4,500 crore and Rs 19,500 crore. Letters of Award cover 8,737 MW under Tranche-I and 39,600 MW under Tranche-II, for 48,337 MW awarded in total. As on 30 June 2026, MNRE reported about 42 GW of module, 12 GW of cell and 2 GW of ingot-wafer capacity actually set up under the scheme, against investment of Rs 73,400 crore. Awarded capacity and commissioned capacity are separate numbers and the gap between them is the story.

On the compliance clock: MNRE’s amendment order dated 9 December 2024 set ALMM List-II for solar PV cells effective from 1 June 2026, with the first List-II issued on 31 July 2025. From that date, only modules using cells from List-II remain in List-I. A subsequent office memorandum dated 18 July 2026 ruled out any blanket extension but gave net-metering and open-access projects a window to commission with a List-II exemption until 31 December 2026. A wafer list has been proposed for a later effective date.

What solar auctions have actually discovered on tariff

Tariff is the statistic most often quoted and least often sourced. Here is what government documents actually say, and where they stop.

Two honest limits. MNRE repeats the Rs 1.99 per unit record in at least eight parliamentary replies but never attributes it to a named auction or a year, so this page does not either. And no government source gives a plain-solar auction tariff for 2025 or 2026; MNRE’s recent tariff tables cover solar-wind hybrid, firm and dispatchable renewable energy, and solar plus storage instead. The solar-plus-storage trend MNRE does publish ran from Rs 6.99 per kWh in 2018 to Rs 2.7 per kWh in 2025, which is a different product from plain solar and should never be quoted as one. For how tariffs translate into project economics, see the LCOE explainer.

India against the rest of the world

Global installed solar capacity reached 2,396.71 GW at the end of 2025, up from 225.72 GW at the end of 2015, according to IRENA figures reproduced in MNRE’s Renewable Energy Statistics 2025-26. Total global renewable capacity was 5,155.01 GW at 31 December 2025.

Source: IRENA Renewable Energy Statistics 2026, as published in MNRE Renewable Energy Statistics 2025-26, Tables 16.2.1 and 19.1.1 and Figure 19.1.1.

MNRE states that on IRENA’s 2026 figures India moved from fourth to third globally in total renewable capacity and retained third place in both solar installed capacity and solar generation. On renewable generation India ranked fifth in 2024, at 380.34 TWh of a world total of 9,836.13 TWh. India also had the highest solar share of its own renewable portfolio among the top five countries, at 54.09%.

Which statistic matters to a buyer, not to a headline

Most of the numbers above are policy statistics. They describe a national portfolio. Almost none of them tell you whether a specific rooftop or a specific factory shed should get solar. Here is the separation, stated plainly.

Statistics that are headlines, not decisions: total installed capacity, world rank, the 30.30% capacity share, the record-low auction tariff, and national manufacturing capacity. None of these change your bill, your payback or your approval timeline. A record auction tariff of Rs 1.99 per unit was discovered in an inter-state utility tender with 25-year offtake, land at scale and single-point evacuation. It has no bearing on a residential quotation.

Statistics that actually decide a project: your own DISCOM’s retail tariff slab, the site’s irradiance and shading, the state and DISCOM net metering rules, the applicable subsidy slab on the date you apply, and the expected annual kWh per kWp at your site. Note that the last of these is a site calculation, not the national fleet CUF computed above.

The forward-looking figure worth knowing is that the Central Electricity Authority estimates addition of around 292 GW of solar capacity by 2029-30, as cited in MNRE’s Annual Report 2025-26. Treat it as a plan. A target is not an achieved installation, and this page has deliberately kept the two apart throughout.

To check any of the above yourself, go to the primary dashboards rather than a secondary article:

For equipment-level questions the national data cannot answer, size the array first with the string sizing calculator, then match the inverter to the result. Qbits publishes model-level electrical limits for its solar inverters on its product pages; no national capacity total tells you which inverter a site needs.

The Bottom Line

India had 168.04 GW of installed solar capacity at 31 August 2026 and generated 174.76 BU from solar in 2025-26. Those two numbers, read together, are the whole discipline of this subject: a 30.30% share of capacity delivering about 9.5% of electricity. Every claim on this page carries its issuing body and its date, and the figures that could not be sourced to a government document, including any 2025 or 2026 plain-solar auction tariff and any official solar CUF, have been left out and named as gaps.

• Copy the “as at” date with every figure you quote, and never compare an MNRE national number with an IRENA country number from a different cut-off.
• Before you use a capacity statistic in a bid, a forecast or a presentation, open the live MNRE Physical Progress table and the CEA Installed Capacity report and confirm the current month.
• For a project rather than a statistic, size the system against site data and then talk to Qbits about the inverter specifications your design actually requires.