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Anchor point: Overview
India’s largest source of clean electricity is hydro at 9%. Wind and solar combined accounted for 10%, significantly higher than in its South Asian neighbour Bangladesh (1%). In 2024, India overtook Germany to become the world’s third largest generator of electricity from wind and solar.
With fossil fuels accounting for 78% of generation in 2024, the power sector is India’s largest emissions contributor. Power sector emissions have grown over the last two decades due to expansion of coal generation. Despite this, the country’s per capita emissions are well below the global average due to low per capita electricity use.
However, coal’s share in meeting new electricity demand is now falling. In 2024, Coal generation met 64% of India’s electricity demand growth, a sharp drop from 91% in 2023.
India is also one of the world’s top coal mine methane emitters. To meet growing energy demand and address energy security concerns, the Ministry of Coal plans to expand domestic coal mining. While this will significantly increase methane emissions, India could still mitigate these emissions by more than 1.6 Mt by 2030 by introducing regulatory reforms and incentives that promote capture and utilisation of fugitive methane using available technologies.
India is one of only ten countries planning to triple renewable generation capacity from 2022 levels by 2030. By October 2024, the country had achieved 200 GW of installed renewables capacity en route to its 2030 goal of 500 GW. Ember analysis suggests that the country would reach 42% renewable electricity generation by 2030 under current plans.
Neshwin Rodrigues, Senior Energy Analyst at Ember said, “India has made significant progress with the rapid adoption of renewables. But the country now faces a key challenge – ensuring its clean generation grows fast enough to meet rising demand.”
Two facets of that challenge are to finance the renewables capacity required, and build enough flexibility to accommodate them through storage and an enhanced electricity grid.
Explore data on India’s national and state level electricity generation, capacity and power sector emissions.
Anchor point: Experts
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