India's race to 500 GW of renewable power by 2030

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Eklavya Gupte:

Welcome to the Energy Evolution Podcast, where we dive deep into the trends, policies, and innovations shaping the future of energy.

I'm your host, Eklavya Gupte, and today we're diving into one of the most dramatic energy transformations happening anywhere on the planet, India's race to reinvent how it powers 1.4 billion people.

Now, India currently stands at a crossroads between its heavy reliance on coal and an ambitious push towards renewable energy. India is currently the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions with emissions projected to rise significantly in the coming years. However, some changes on the horizon. India's renewable energy industry has experienced remarkable growth in the past few years, particularly in wind, solar, and hydro positioning the country as one of the fastest growing markets for clean energy in the world. And what's particularly intriguing is how this transformation is playing out in corporate boardrooms across India. Several of the country's industrial and manufacturing giants, which have powered India's industrial revolution with coal for decades are also now diversifying to renewables.

Today we have Dr. Praveer Sinha, CEO and managing director of Tata Power joining us. Tata Power is one of India's largest and oldest integrated power utilities. But first, we'll speak to Ruchira Singh, our editor at S&P Global Commodity Insights, who covers the energy transition beat, particularly focusing on the Asia-Pacific region. Ruchira, welcome to Energy Evolution. It's great to have you here.

Ruchira Singh:

Thank you, Eklavya. Great to be here.

Eklavya Gupte:

So Ruchira, to start off with, can you tell me about some of the strides that India's power sector has made, especially since it's still depends a lot on coal.

Ruchira Singh:

Yes. So Eklavya, just to set the backdrop, like you mentioned, India is the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter. Most of the forecasts see it staying in this position for the years to come, and the greenhouse gases emissions is on a rising trajectory with emissions rising well into the 2040s. So India's overall emissions are seen rising from about 4.24 billion metric tons CO2 equivalent in 2025 to about 4.58 billion metric tons CO2 equivalent by 2030. And then we see it peaking only in the 2050s. So the power sector really has got a lot on its hands, given that it has the maximum share in this rising emissions. It is the biggest contributor accounting for approximately 40% of the emissions of India. And this is because, like you mentioned, India has to bank on its coal resources and it has been mining its coal resources which are really very vast, and that has been the source of cheap electricity for the country.

Now, if we come to energy transition, the strategies, like you said in the boardrooms of Indian industries and the power sectors is indeed changing. Everybody's realizing the importance of energy transition and they have started on this work of devising their energy transition strategies and putting the investment on the table, and many of them have also given their targets that they want to have for their renewable energy generation.

So the task, however, is extra challenging because the power demand has been rising very rapidly. So for instance, in 2023, power demand in one year rebounded by 9% year-on-year, and since then it has maintained a pretty steady rise every year. However, the government has an ambitious target of having 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel based power capacity by 2030. And at this point we are at the halfway mark. So in the five years to go, India will have to really step up its renewable capacity additions in a very, very big way. It's adding something like 20 gigawatts, that would have to accelerate to about 40 to 50 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity per year. But the general view if you ask people, is that the country is really headed in that direction and it may hit the target by 2030 as per optimistic forecasts, or it may see some kind of delays.

Eklavya Gupte:

Thank you. Now, obviously India's net-zero target is currently at 2070, which is much later than some of the biggest economies and emerging economies in the world. So what would it take for the power sector to accelerate the energy transition in India?

Ruchira Singh:

So the net zero target is really a long distance away, but the companies have their individual net zero targets which are ahead of that. For instance, Tata Power aims to reach net zero by 2045 and it aims to have 70% non-fossil fuel based capacity by 2030 from over about 40% now. And if we take some other companies, NTPC, which is the state-run generator, which is the largest generator really of power in India, NTPC wants to have 60 gigawatts of renewable power capacity by 2032.

But these companies also face a lot of challenges. So for instance, the generators, they speak about problems in getting the land. So if you know renewable power, the plants or the fields which have solar and wind for instance, require vast swaths of land. And in India with its rising population and also a heavy dependence on agriculture, land is scarce and it's difficult for the expansion of renewables given this situation.

Then there are other problems. For instance, the grid is a little archaic and I hear generators talking all the time about the need to upgrade it. They need to upgrade the evacuation capacity technology as well because with more and more generation coming on to the grid, it has to be strengthened and it needs innovation and the latest technology so that the power can be evacuated and can be distributed.

And let's not miss the funding requirements that people and companies have been speaking about. So investments are available in India, the government has been backing all of the renewable power firms, but for the size and scale of India's power production and the size and scale of the energy transition, it needs far bigger investments going into the infrastructure as well as the production of renewable power.

Then there are other regulatory issues which pose as challenges.

So for example, the power purchase agreements kind of get delayed in being firmed up and being signed up. So there are these difficulties and the companies which are expanding the renewable power capacity have to deal with these issues.

So in my conversation with Dr. Praveer Sinha, I saw a lot of hope in what he was saying. He outlined some of the same challenges that I just mentioned, but then he also pointed out the advantages that are out there for the power companies to make use of. So for instance, the technological advancements, with that renewable power prices can really fall further or they can stay at lower levels for a long duration of time, which can be an advantage. And also the gap between the conventional power, the coal-led power, and the renewable power, that gap is widening. So the conventional power is getting more costlier as renewable power gets cheaper.

Eklavya Gupte:

Thank you, Ruchira. Now let's go straight to your conversation with Dr. Praveer Sinha, who is the CEO and managing director of Tata Power.

Ruchira Singh:

So India is recognized as one of the fastest growing nations in renewable power expansion. However, it remains the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and is expected to remain in this position for years to come. What additional measures can both the government and the industry undertake to expedite the energy transition in the coming years?

Praveer Sinha:

So first of all, I think we need to understand that India started the energy transition about 10 years back, though there were initial steps which were taken in 2010, but the real action started in around 2015. In 2015, India had just five gigawatt of solar, as of last month, we are talking of something like 125 gigawatt of solar and nearly 250 gigawatt of non-carbon, which includes solar, wind and hydro and pumped hydro and small hydro plants.

So India has come a long way from the way it used to produce power and supply, and I think the roadmap that it has set for itself is very ambitious. While we are today at 250 gigawatt, we have plans to add another 250 gigawatt of non-carbon in next five years. And this is a very, very tall order considering that we've never done such a amount of capacity additions in last so many years. And we have a huge pipeline of projects which are coming up in the next five years, which will be again, a combination of solar, wind, battery storage, pump storage. So I think there is a huge amount of initiative that is being taken.

We also need to understand that when we are talking of energy transition, we need to bring firm energy. Most of the renewable power, especially the solar and wind are intermittent, they're in certain hours, there are solar hours and there are wind hours. And how do we make them more reliable? How do we make them 24/7? How do we ensure that we have clean energy?

Again, a lot of work is happening. Fortunately the prices of batteries have come down, so the battery storage is becoming very popular and is getting implemented at a very fast pace. Similarly, pumped hydro projects, which takes a little longer time, but they have also much longer life and consistency of supply.

So I do feel that in next 5 to 10 years, India's energy transition to clean energy will be much faster. And I think emissions from the existing coal plants will come down drastically, because as you know that during the period when we have solar or wind, these are on a must run basis. So the utilization of coal based plants will drastically reduce during these hours and it'll only be used as a base plant during periods when we do not have any other form of clean energy available.

So I'm very confident that India's roadmap is very robust. Of course it can improve the pace at which it has to be implemented, has to be augmented from the present, 31 gigawatt last year, we need to look at going into 40 and 50 gigawatt in next one to two years. But I'm very confident that we will be able to meet that target.

Ruchira Singh:

Sure. So people often speak about India reaching an inflection point wherein suddenly there could be a bigger spot of expansion of solar and wind with just five years remaining to hit the target of 500 gigawatts of renewable or non fossil fuel power by 2030, power capacity rather, what would it take for us to reach that inflection point wherein we can suddenly see a jump of maybe 20 gigawatts to 40, 50 gigawatts of new additions every year?

Praveer Sinha:

So these projects require a large extent of land, getting a large quantum of land, in many parts of the country is a challenge because we also have a huge population. And Indian economy is to a very large extent dependent on agriculture and these are fertile lands which cannot be used for putting up solar plants or wind plants. So there are few pockets where a lot of these barren land is available in a few states, those are getting utilized. So that's a challenge and in a democracy acquisition of land and getting access will always remain a issue which has to be handed in a very sensitive way so that we do not have issues about people losing their fertile land or losing their precious land for industrial activity.

The second is when you create this sort of capacity, how do you bring that power into the load centers? Again, a huge capacity needs to be added considering that these are renewable power which have very low PLF and you need to, so for say a hundred megawatt of coal base plants, you need to create power evacuation for a hundred megawatt. But in a solar plant which has nearly 23, 24% capacity utilization, you will have to create four times that extent of power evacuation line because the nature of power is such that it is only being used for certain hours.

So I think for the same quantum of energy, we need more quantum of transmission lines and transmission line again requires not only the manufacturing and capability to execute, but also the right of way, getting land for that is a challenge. So I think these are some of the issues which the country is trying to address, and I do feel that we will be able to meet our 2030 target maybe a few months or maybe a year gap, but definitely directionally we are doing the right things and I feel that we'll be able to meet the targets that we have set for ourselves.

Ruchira Singh:

Right. And you are heading the CII National Committee on Power at the Confederation of Indian Industries. So from your position, what are some of the recommendations that you may have made to the government?

Praveer Sinha:

So for energy transition, we of course keep on asking the government that the whole ecosystem of implementation of such large quantum of projects needs to be addressed, land acquisition has to be supported especially by the state governments as it is the state governments which have to provide access to land. Similarly, for power evacuation, some sort of support has to be provided to the equipment manufacturers so that they can enhance their manufacturing capability as also bring the newer technologies which is there in terms of creating the manufacturing infrastructure.

The third area is how do we provide better financing support to the companies implementing these project? This requires not only financing within the country, but also multilateral agencies and international global financing and at a reasonable interest rate. So I think there is whole lot of action that needs to be done.

In addition to this, when you set up this sort of large capacity, the buyers of the power have to have good bona fides. We not only have the utilities who buy power, but also your commercial and industrial customers who will buy power, and how do you ensure that the laws governing that are made more simple and more consumer friendly. And then the rooftop, the retail sales to the people in cities, in villages, in semi-urban areas, in remote areas, how do we again provide support? And again, the government program of B M Sudhakar is there.

So I think it's a combination of various things that the government has to keep on providing for the next few years to meet this ambitious target. Also, what we keep on asking the government is that we need to create a good and a modern manufacturing facility in the country. While we have good manufacturing facility for wind turbines, for solar, while we have created a good capacity for modules, the cell and the other areas such as the inboard and wafer and polysilicon infrastructure needs to be created. And that's an area for which government will have to provide a certain amount of subsidy as well as non-tariff barrier.

So I think all in all, there are a lot of areas that the government has to proactively support so that we not only create our transition to clean energy, but also create the basic supply chain that is required so that this is sustained on a long-term basis and not just a one-shot because it's not just a target for 2030, but it's a much longer target that we are setting for ourselves. And if I can also share with you that the newer ways of producing power, nuclear power, that also needs to be addressed. So I think there is a whole lot of action that needs to be done.

Ruchira Singh:

Sure. So all in all, if we look at the generation mix, so non fossil fuels generate approximately 20% in the whole mix, do you see a day in the near future when it can actually rise further from that position and maybe grab a bigger share?

Praveer Sinha:

So when we look at power, there are two ways of looking it. One is on capacity. And I mentioned to you that already 50% of our capacity is now non-carbon generation capacity and the other is on the energy, considering that solar and wind are only intermittent and for certain hours, in terms of energy mix, we are still 20%, but with the way the capacity increase is taking place and another 250 gigawatt will get added in clean energy in the next five years, we do expect that something like 45 to 50% in that range, we will have the clean energy portfolio beyond 2030 onwards.

And that's the type of energy mix change that you would see. We've already seen now that we had this year, a lot of solar plants and wind plants operating the mix of coal-based plant, which was last year something like 76% has come down to 61% in terms of energy. And I think that's a big change that we have seen. And I think by the end of this decade, 2030, we'll definitely be somewhere around that 50/50 range that we are looking at. And that's where I think our energy transition journey is much longer, it's not only up to 2030. And if we can get some more viable solutions, especially in terms of small modular reactor, these nuclear reactors, if they are financially attractive and have low cost of production, then those can be scaled up and we can have a much faster transition whereby maybe 80 to 90% of our energy comes from clean energy sources.

Ruchira Singh:

Now moving on to Tata Power, the company has undergone a significant transformation from a century-old utility company to an integrated power producer with significant focus on renewable energy. So with your ambitious goal of achieving 70% renewable power in the capacity mix by 2030, what challenges are you currently facing and how are you working on overcoming those?

Praveer Sinha:

In 2015, 16, we had just 14% of our capacity at that time, which was clean energy. Today we have more than 40% of our installed capacity, which is clean energy, and we have a target that by 2030 this will become 70%. So there is a conscious effort that has been made by us wherein we said that all our new capacity adds will be clean energy and we continue to work on that. This of course, excludes the rooftop solar, which also we are very, very aggressively driving because we do believe that rooftop solar is about democratization of energy and empowering the customers to produce their own energy, use it and also give it to the grid or give it to a cluster of consumers.

We are setting up pumped hydro projects, nearly 2.8 gigawatt of pumped hydro where the work has already started for one gigawatt and another 1.8 will start next year. We are setting up hydro plants in Bhutan. Already work has started in one 600 megawatt and another one of 1,100 will start in next six months.

So I think we have a very, very clear road map that as a responsible utility, as a utility which has been there for more than a hundred years, it is our responsibility and duty to bring new technologies and drive the leadership not only in setting up, but also in thought that we need to bring clean energy as a way of life.

We are not only talking about energy for power and for utilization, but also in the mobility space, we are one of the biggest in terms of driving the EV charging infrastructure. We have more than 150,000 EV charges, which have home charges that we have put in various parts of the country. In addition to this, we have nearly 1,200 of the charges for bus charging, which we work with the local transport departments. We have nearly 6,000 of public charges and we are fully geared up to meet the requirement of e-mobility in the country in terms of providing these charges not only in cities, but also on all the highways. So Tata Power understands that as an integrated power company, we need to drive these and we not only need to do the right things in our generation portfolio, but also work on the smart grid technologies, smart metering so that the efficient and proper usage of electricity also takes place by the consumers.

Ruchira Singh:

You have emphasized the importance of energy security and energy transition coexisting, so how do you plan to balance these two priorities in terms of your capacity expansion and also in terms of how you will be spending your CapEx and which particular segments would that be going into?

Praveer Sinha:

So I think our strategy is very clear that we will put up not pure solar or wind, but we will give package solutions because whether it is the industry or the office or a commercial establishment or even a residential, we need to give them confidence that we will be able to provide them 24/7 clean energy and not certain hours. And to that extent, the combination that we are now building of our solar wind, combining it with battery storage and different chemistries of battery storage, combining it with pumped hydro and hydro projects, we will be in a position to give 24/7 once our pumped hydro projects are implemented by '28, '29. So we are very much on track.

Ruchira Singh:

Sure. So as one of the leading producers in India, what are the insights that you can share about power consumers in India? And also, the second question I have is if you could share an outlook for power prices in India, both for conventional power and renewable power.

Praveer Sinha:

As you know that conventional power is a little expensive because the coal cost keeps on going up. It has to be mined, it has to be transported, and these are all little expensive. Similarly, they have annual escalation, unlike clean energy where there is no escalation because the solar and wind, you don't have to pay any charges on that.

So the effort is always to bring consistency in supply and also availability as in when required. And the third is that how do we have large volumes of these solutions and not small quantities? And that is an area that we have worked very diligently. Being an integrated company, we are able to provide them very smart solutions. And these solutions will be much better and much lower in cost compared to the conventional energy sources. So it's not that people will have to pay anything extra. In fact, over a long period of time, if you look at 20, 25 years period, it'll be much more lower than what they are trying today or they would have ended up paying in next 20, 25 years, considering that there's always increase in cost of coal, gas, oil. So in the next five years, the conventional coal and gas and oil will go up while in solar and wind, it'll only come down and it'll remain one static price for a very long period of time.

Eklavya Gupte:

Okay, listeners, that's all for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for tuning in. Now I would like to give a special shout out to the rest of our Energy Evolution podcast team, including Camilla Naschert, Karen Willenbrecht, and Dan Testa, and a big thank you to our agency partner, the 199, and the Commodity Insights Digital Content team. Lastly, please subscribe to Energy Evolution on your favorite platform so you don't miss the next episode. And hey, if you have some ideas for podcast themes or guests, please email us at energyevolution@spglobal.com. Until next time, thank you for tuning in.