Renewable energy in India
India is the world's 3rd largest consumer of electricity and the world's 4th largest renewable energy producer, with 52.15% of energy capacity installed as of November 2025 (253.96 GW of 486.94 GW) coming from renewable sources. Ernst & Young's (EY) 2024 Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI) ranked India 7th. India has committed to a goal of 500 GW renewable energy capacity by 2030. Solar PV with battery storage plants can meet economically the total electricity demand with 100% reliability in 89% days of a year. The generation shortfall from solar PV plants in rest of days due to cloudy daytime during the monsoon season can be mitigated by wind, hydro power and seasonal pumped storage hydropower plants.
In 2016, with the Paris Agreement's Intended Nationally Determined Contributions targets, India made commitment of producing 50% of its total electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. In 2018, India's Central Electricity Authority too set a target of producing 50% of the total electricity from non-fossil fuels sources by 2030. India achieved these milestones in June 2025, five years ahead of the 2030.
India crossed 250 GW milestone of non-fossil power installed capacity in August 2025. The total non-fossil power installed capacity has reached 262.74 GW in November 2025, which is 51.5% of the total installed electricity capacity in the country (509.64 GW). India has also set a target of producing 500 GW by 2030 from renewable energy.
As of October 2024, 92.12 GW solar energy is already operational, projects of 48.21 GW are at various stages of implementation and projects of 25.64 GW capacity are under various stages of bidding. In 2020, 3 of the world's top 5 largest solar parks were in India including world's largest 2255 MW Bhadla Solar Park in Rajasthan and world's second-largest solar park of 2000 MW Pavgada Solar Park Tumkur in Karnataka and 1000 MW Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh. Wind power in India has a strong manufacturing base with 20 manufactures of 53 different wind turbine models of international quality up to 3 MW in size with exports to Europe, United States and other countries.
Solar, wind and run-of-the-river hydroelectricity are environment-friendly cheaper power sources they are used as "must-run" sources in India to cater for the base load, and the polluting and foreign-import dependent coal-fired power is increasingly being moved from the "must-run base load" power generation to the load following power generation (mid-priced and mid-merit on-demand need-based intermittently-produced electricity) to meet the peaking demand only. Some of the daily peak demand in India is already met with the renewable peaking hydro power capacity. Solar and wind power with 4-hour battery storage systems, as a source of dispatchable generation compared with new coal and new gas plants, is already cost-competitive in India without subsidy.
India initiated the International Solar Alliance (ISA), an alliance of 121 countries. India was the world's first country to set up a ministry of non-conventional energy resources (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE)) in the early 1980s. Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a public sector undertaking, is responsible for the development of solar energy industry in India. Hydroelectricity is administered separately by the Ministry of Power and not included in MNRE targets.
The Union budget 2026 allocated ₹600 crore to the Green Energy Corridor for developing 6,000 km of intra-state transmission, improving renewable evacuation. In addition, funding for the Reformed Linked Distribution Scheme (RLDS) has increased 15% to ₹18,000 crore, focusing on smart metering and network upgrades.