India Must Aim For 600 GW Of Clean Energy By 2030: CEEW

India Must Aim For 600 GW Of Clean Energy By 2030: CEEW

India needs to scale up to 600 GW of non-fossil-fuel capacity by 2030 to meet its growing electricity demand reliably and affordably, according to a new, independent Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) study launched at the National Dialogue on Powering India’s Future today in Delhi.

The study, ‘How Can India Meet Its Rising Power Demand? Pathways to 2030’, the think tank said is the first-of-its-kind to model India’s power system despatch for every 15 minutes in 2030. It found that if India’s electricity demand grows as per the Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) projections, India’s existing, under-construction, and planned generation capacities would be adequate to meet power needs in 2030.

The CEEW study launch was attended by Dr Suresh Prabhu, Trustee, CEEW and Former Cabinet Minister; Shripad Yesso Naik, Minister of State for Power and New and Renewable Energy; Ghanshyam Prasad, Chairperson, Central Electricity Authority; officials from distribution companies and the private sector.

However, if power demand were to continue to outpace current projections due to a warming planet or strong economic growth over the coming five years, the CEEW study finds that a high renewable energy (RE) pathway of 600 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030 offers the most viable solution, mainly due to cheaper RE resources. This would include 377 GW of solar, 148 GW of wind, 62 GW of hydro, and 20 GW of nuclear energy. This research comes in the wake of the country’s power demand reaching a record 238 GW in February 2025 with peak demand expected to touch 260 GW in the summer months, surpassing projections due to unusually warm weather.

The CEEW report models multiple scenarios for India’s power sector in 2030, including a baseline scenario that assumes electricity demand grows as per CEA projections and that India meets its 500 GW non-fossil fuel target. However, if India does not meet its clean energy targets, and reaches only 400 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030, power shortages could emerge, necessitating 10-16 GW of new coal capacity, and significant enhancements in the transmission network to ensure grid stability. Therefore, the CEEW report identifies current clean energy challenges—such as land procurement, timely grid connectivity and balancing, supply chain constraints and un-tied capacity under central auctions—that need proactive action to tap into the massive market potential and project implementation on the ground.

The acceleration in ambition is important. Deploying 600 GW of clean energy across more states could reduce generation costs by 6-18 paise per unit, eliminate the need for new coal plants, save between INR 13,000 crore and INR 42,400 crore in power procurement costs, and create 53,000 to 1,00,000 additional jobs—all while cutting carbon emissions by 9-16 per cent, compared to FY24. Achieving 600 GW-non-fossil capacity would require significant investments in flexible resources such as battery storage (70 GW of four-hour battery energy storage systems), pumped storage hydro (13 GW), and retrofitting 140 GW of coal capacity to manage grid stability. The rapidly declining cost of battery storage favours a high RE pathway.