India’s Clean-Energy Crossroads: A Season of Momentum and Strain

In the past six months, India’s clean-energy transition has quickened its pace. From the solar fields of Gujarat to the wind corridors of Tamil Nadu, a quiet acceleration is underway—one that has brought the country closer than ever to its ambitious 2030 goals, while exposing the deep seams that still hold its energy system together.

A surge in momentum

Between January and June 2025, India added roughly 22 gigawatts of new renewable capacity—56 percent more than during the same period a year earlier. It was a symbolic shift from aspiration to execution, and it culminated in a milestone announcement in July: non-fossil capacity had surpassed half of India’s total electricity-generation base. For a country still widely seen as coal-dependent, the optics mattered as much as the arithmetic.

States, long the laboratories of India’s energy reforms, were central to this surge. Gujarat topped the leaderboard, adding 8.5 GW of renewable capacity in just nine months—more than some nations manage in a year. Rajasthan, meanwhile, broke new regulatory ground by proposing that households could install behind-the-meter battery systems without prior approval from utilities, signalling a new wave of consumer-level participation in the energy transition.

The financing ecosystem also showed new life. In October, EAAA Alternatives pledged ₹400 billion (roughly US $4.8 billion) toward renewable projects over the next five years, part of a wider push by domestic and international investors to claim a share of India’s green-infrastructure build-out. It is a sign that the story of India’s energy shift is not only about generation capacity but also about capital confidence.

Cracks beneath the surface

Yet the rapid build-out has exposed deeper fragilities. A growing number of projects remain stranded—built but not connected to the grid, or awaiting power-purchase agreements. As of August, roughly 44 GW of renewable capacity was sitting idle, held back by transmission delays, permitting bottlenecks and uneven coordination between state and national agencies.

Coal, too, remains stubbornly central. Although non-fossil sources now make up half of installed capacity, coal continues to generate about two-thirds of India’s electricity. The government’s plan to expand coal-fired capacity by nearly 80 GW by 2032 underscores the dual-track reality of the transition: renewables are booming, but fossil fuels are not yet retreating. The result is a hybrid system—clean energy rising atop an old carbon base.

Technical and infrastructural challenges compound the issue. Transmission networks remain patchy; grid stability, storage and load balancing lag behind capacity expansion. The government’s decision to extend transmission-charge waivers for battery projects until 2028 was a tacit recognition of this lag—a policy nudge toward a system still learning to integrate variable renewables at scale.

A delicate balance

These six months have shown both the promise and the peril of India’s energy transformation. The pace of renewable growth has given policymakers new confidence that the 2030 target of 500 GW of non-fossil capacity is achievable. But the simultaneous rise of fossil capacity, coupled with stranded assets and uneven state performance, highlights how fragile that confidence can be.

For now, India’s strategy resembles a balancing act: sustaining industrial growth and reliable power supply while attempting to re-engineer its energy mix. States like Gujarat and Rajasthan are becoming templates for what works—fast permitting, policy clarity, and grid-level innovation. Others lag, constrained by outdated infrastructure or fiscal limits.

Investment pledges, too, must translate into operational plants, manufacturing scale, and domestic supply-chain resilience. Without these, India risks becoming a high-deployment market rather than a true global exporter of clean-energy technology.

Looking ahead

The next six months will test whether the current momentum can survive its own contradictions. Stranded capacity must find its way to the grid; storage and transmission projects must move from blueprint to reality; and policymakers must begin to taper reliance on new coal plants if the “clean-energy majority” is to mean more than a statistical crossing.

India’s progress in 2025 has been genuine, even historic. But as the nation edges closer to its 2030 horizon, the narrative is no longer about whether it can build renewable capacity. It is about whether it can build a system capable of absorbing it. The sprint toward clean power has begun in earnest—but the track ahead remains uneven, and the race, far from over.