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Delivering the energy transition in India: the supply side
6/8/2025
8 min read
Feature
After remarkable growth of renewable energy capacity addition, India achieved 50% clean power capacity five years ahead of its National Determined Contributions (NDC) target, according to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. Now, the focus is shifting towards the requirements for green energy delivery mechanisms in India’s coal-dominated grid. Mohua Mukherjee, Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) puts the shift in context.
India is designing investment programmes for storage and transmission upgrades and modernisation so that large amounts of renewables can reach end-users through the grid. Storage increases the ‘on-demand availability’ of renewable energy, making it comparable to the reliability of thermal power but without the greenhouse gas emissions. Complementary investments in storage and grid upgrades, and further renewable energy generation capacity, will help to manage India’s exit from a coal-dominant electricity generation mix in the next 5–10 years. The target is to double today’s 250 GW of renewable energy by 2030, by tendering for 50 GW every year.
Universal electrification was only achieved in 2019. Electricity demand is increasing by 100 TWh/y (see also this week’s companion article Delivering the energy transition in India: what's happening on the demand side). Therefore, India needs to expand electricity generation from all sources.
Electricity demand in India continues to outpace capacity addition, from new loads such as data centres, artificial intelligence training models, electrification of transport, air-conditioning necessitated by extreme heatwaves, and the like. As clean energy typically has very low running costs once it is in place, policymakers have given it preference and procured large stand-alone amounts since 2018.