Shut out of the US, India’s solar makers turn to the missing links
Global clean investment in the first half of 2026 was 17% below the same period last year, with China behind most of the drop. Solar...
Latest
Crude flows recover, diesel does not, and India’s refiners land on opposite sides
Brent spent the week in a US$96-104 band. On 1 October alone it swung from US$96.55 to US$103.96 and closed about 4% higher, near US$102. It dipped towards US$98 on 2 October after the G7 announcement, then recovered. By Monday it was at US$100.32, and it ended Wednesday near US$102 as Houthi claims of fresh strikes on Saudi facilities kept a floor under prices. The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) 6 October outlook shows how sticky the mood is. It raised...
India’s energy infrastructure draws fresh capital across grid, renewables, storage and oil
India’s $19.3bn Green Energy Corridor III targets 135 GW of renewables and 50 GWh of storage The Union Cabinet has approved Green Energy Corridor Phase...
Coal Watch: India’s coal imports climb as thermal and coking shipments strengthen
India’s combined steam and coking coal imports rose 10.2% week-on-week to 4.02 million tonnes (MT) during 27 September–3 October 2026, from 3.65 MT in the...
When captive power plants get drafted: Inside India’s September supply squeeze
India’s power sector spent the past week absorbing the fallout of September’s supply strain. A near-record demand peak met a critically thin coal cushion, prompting...
In Focus
Editor's Pick
Why South India is quietly becoming the centre of India’s EV economy
Southern India is rapidly emerging as the centre of India’s electric mobility transformation, driven by growing investments in...
Why climate change is becoming a major financial challenge for India’s banks
Indian banks are improving climate disclosures and sustainability reporting, but most remain poorly prepared for deeper financial risks...
India's rooftop solar has two economies, and only one of them is working
Behind India's impressive renewable energy capacity numbers lies a more revealing reality. Rooftop solar is already delivering measurable...
Rural India's solar reckoning: Why village grids need more than panels to work
A new IISD framework for planning rural solar villages finds that village-level solarisation can cut electricity costs nearly...
Insights
India’s 450-GW geothermal potential meets its first two wells at Puga Valley
India has commissioned its first two geothermal wells, in Ladakh’s Puga Valley, alongside a national policy meant to build an entire industry around the Earth’s...
India’s US$55-b climate bill: Why insurers, not just financiers, are now pricing the risk of clean energy
India’s renewable build-out is usually measured in gigawatts. A recently released report of Zurich Resilience Solutions puts a different number on the table: the replacement...
Beyond cheap solar: The trillion-rupee battle over India's clean energy future
India's solar transition is entering a decisive new phase. While falling tariffs and rapid capacity additions have established solar as a cornerstone of India's clean...
India's next energy security challenge is not oil or coal but the critical minerals
India's energy security challenge is evolving from securing fossil fuels to securing critical minerals that power batteries, storage systems and clean-energy technologies. As energy storage...
Energy Transition
India’s electrification math: Why 32% is within reach without new subsidies
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) new special report on electrification finds that India’s electrification rate could climb from 19% today to 32%, simply by deploying...
Coal's flexibility wall: Why India's solar boom needs battery storage now
India generates record levels of solar power at midday, but its coal plants cannot reduce output below a safety threshold — forcing grid operators to...
India’s trillion-dollar steel gamble: Why green steel may soon outcompete coal-based production
India’s planned steel expansion could lock the country into massive coal imports, rising carbon costs and growing exposure to global market volatility. However, falling renewable...
Time-to-power: India’s solar tariff wall faces a speed test in a US$559-billion race
Cost once decided which power source won. Now time does. Gas turbines are booked into 2031, households are investing billions, and trade barriers are rising....
Policy
Policy
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#India
#Power Demand
#Discoms
NTPC’s US$176.4 billion roadmap shows India’s power money is outrunning its regulators
India’s power sector is entering a capital supercycle. NTPC alone has outlined a ₹16.86 lakh crore (US$176.4 billion) capex plan through FY37, while the government...
India’s US$210-billion nuclear bet is running into its own rulebook
India wants to grow nuclear capacity from 8.78 GW to 100 GW by 2047, a target built on private capital, foreign reactor technology and a...
India’s US$3.6-b solar pump scheme is quietly draining the water it was built to protect
PM-KUSUM has installed more than 11 lakh solar irrigation pumps and is central to India’s decentralised solar push. But as groundwater tables fall in Rajasthan,...
Why India’s oldest power contracts are becoming its newest liability
As solar capacity surges past 150 GW, India’s coal-fired plants are being forced to run flexibly, ramping down for hours each day. Yet the long-term...
Markets
India–Saudi Arabia's $9bn undersea power link faces a cost test as estimates climb from $5bn
India and Saudi Arabia have completed a feasibility study for a 2,100-km undersea link estimated at around US$9bn, carrying 3 GW through high-voltage direct current....
Saudi Arabia signs $1.16bn in grid storage deals under Vision 2030's first BOO BESS batch
Saudi Arabia's state power procurer, the Saudi Power Procurement Company, has signed storage service agreements for four battery energy storage projects with a combined capacity...
MCX bets $21m on coal exchange to bring price transparency to India's key fuel market
Multi Commodity Exchange of India plans to invest up to ₹200 crore (US$21m) to establish dedicated trading platforms for coal and minerals, with SEBI having...
Clean-energy dealmaking accelerates amid India’s evolving infrastructure transition
India’s renewable-energy sector witnessing nearly $2 billion worth of clean-energy deals reflects the deepening financialisation of the country’s energy transition. Beyond the headline investment numbers,...
Corporate & Finance
India draws fresh capital across digital infrastructure, clean energy and gas networks
EQT commits $50bn to India by 2030, with $30bn targeting data centres Swedish private equity group EQT plans to invest around $50 billion in India...
Global capital deepens India bet as data centres and clean energy drive investment
EQT commits $50bn to India, with $30bn targeting data centres Swedish private equity firm EQT plans to invest approximately $50 billion in India by 2030,...
India’s energy transition draws fresh capital across clean power, metals and electric mobility
Odisha’s $25.4 b UAE haul signals a state-led push to outcompete for global capital Odisha has returned from a three-day investment roadshow in Abu Dhabi...
ADB targets $1bn for MP renewable PPPs; Powertrac orders 10 GWh BESS line, and more
ADB’s first India transaction advisory deal targets $1bn private capital for MP renewable PPPs The Asian Development Bank has signed its first transaction advisory services...
Power
India’s monsoon calm hides a discom reckoning and a busier regional grid
India's power sector traded summer's demand records for monsoon-season recalibration this week. Discom dues data, a set of regulatory moves including a storage-friendly transmission waiver,...
India’s power grid has stopped being a pipe. It is becoming a queue
India has solved its power shortage. It has not solved the sharing of its grid. A ₹9.2 lakh crore (US$96.1 billion) transmission build-out, a Haryana...
Delhi's electricity transition: Why the answer lies in imports, not generation
Delhi's electricity demand reached a record 8,748 MW in June 2026, driven by early and intensifying heatwaves, even as the city's own power generation covers...
Atomic aspirations: How nuclear energy can anchor India’s next power system
India's energy transition is entering a decisive new phase where reliability has become as important as capacity expansion. As renewable energy scales, rising electricity demand,...
Storage
India’s 260-GWh battery bet: Falling global prices are financing a boom built on imports, not factories
India’s energy storage tenders are exploding in scale, but a new industry assessment finds the country remains 10–15 years from making its own battery cells...
Why heat, not batteries, could decide India’s next energy-storage race
India’s energy-storage debate has long centred on lithium-ion batteries and pumped hydro, but thermal energy storage is gaining attention as renewable capacity expands. From molten-salt...
Batteries are quietly rewriting solar's daily limit, and India's coal fleet is the clearest proof of it
Global solar generation reached a record 10% share of electricity in H1 2026, yet it remains overwhelmingly a daytime phenomenon, collapsing to near zero after...
India’s USUS$41.7-billion storage build-out meets a battery price reversal
India expects 45–50 GWh of battery storage over this fiscal and the next, up from about 1 GWh. But bids were won on 2025 cell...
Renewables
India’s US$6.7-billion wind bet faces a reckoning as its regulatory cushion disappears
India’s wind sector is having its best year in decades, but from 31 August, it loses the special grid protection that has cushioned it since...
India's floating solar push: Making room for clean power without running out of land space
India's solar capacity has grown from 3 GW in 2014 to over 162 GW today, but land is running scarce. Floating solar, panels mounted on...
India's rooftop revolution is winning the numbers game and losing the share game
India's distributed solar capacity has surged from 1.8GW to 31.5GW since 2018, driven by government subsidy schemes. But its share of total renewable installations has...
India's changing solar assumptions: Why demand is becoming the defining challenge
India's solar sector has spent two years worrying about grid bottlenecks and land competition with farmers. New research suggests both fears are largely misplaced: land...
Green Fuels
India’s biogas ambition faces its next challenge: Making plants work efficiently
India's compressed biogas sector is scaling rapidly, backed by SATAT, the National Bioenergy Programme, and billions in projected investment. Yet beyond capacity additions, plants face...
India’s biogas push is quietly turning waste into an energy and industrial resource
India is increasingly turning to biogas and compressed biogas (CBG) as part of its clean-energy transition, viewing organic waste not merely as a disposal challenge...
Can hydrogen power India’s transport future? Buses and trains put it to the test
India’s hydrogen mobility ambitions are moving from policy discussions to real-world trials, with hydrogen fuel-cell buses operating in Delhi and India’s first hydrogen-powered train planned...
India’s $7.4-b hydrogen opportunity gathers momentum as exports, industry and investors align
India’s green hydrogen sector is rapidly evolving from policy ambition into a strategic industrial and export opportunity. Rising global demand for low-carbon fuels, expanding electrolyser...
Oil & Gas
Gulf oil flows quietly return to normal as India’s crude basket hits a fresh high
Oil markets whipsawed this week as US-Iran talks collapsed, briefly revived and then stalled again within days, swinging Brent between the high-US$90s and well above...
Saudi pipeline restart brings relief, but India’s crude import bill surges to new highs
Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline came back online this week after Houthi drone strikes had knocked it out for nearly a fortnight, offering some relief to...
Crude breaks past USUS$100 as the conflict opens two new fronts
A month of relative calm ended abruptly this week as the US and Iran resumed direct strikes, Houthi forces hit Saudi oil facilities for the...
India’s cheapest LNG is the cargo that has not arrived as Qatar extends force majeure
Asian spot LNG slipped to US$25.25 per mmBtu for November delivery as a few more Qatari cargoes cleared Hormuz, but QatarEnergy extended force majeure and...
Coal
Coal India’s record September output fails to cool a scorching e-auction market
Coal India’s September output beat its own target and offtake jumped sharply, yet the e-auction market only got hotter. Premiums nearly doubled from August, the...
Coal Watch: India’s coal imports rebound as stronger thermal and coking shipments lift weekly arrivals
India’s combined steam and coking coal imports rose 33.8% week-on-week to 3.65 million tonnes (MT) during 20–26 September 2026, from 2.73 MT in the previous...
India turns to emergency powers and imported coal as plant stocks slide further
Coal inventories at India’s thermal plants kept sliding this week, with over two-fifths of the monitored fleet below critical levels. The government responded on two...
Coal Watch: India’s coal imports slide as weaker thermal and coking shipments cut weekly arrivals
India’s coal imports fell sharply during 13–19 September 2026, with combined steam and coking coal arrivals declining to 2.73 million tonnes (MT) from 4.00 MT...
Mobility
India’s US$38.6-billion EV financing bet is running into a resale-value problem
India’s EV financing market is projected to reach ₹3.7 lakh crore (roughly US$50 billion) by 2030, but lenders are increasingly focused on a basic question:...
India’s US$125-billion EV question: Why speed matters more than battery factories
A new ICCT study finds India could cut its combined oil and battery import bill by up to US$125 billion a year by 2050 through...
India’s EV market is racing toward US$ 191 billion, but minerals and manpower may decide its pace
India’s electric vehicle push is entering a less visible but more consequential phase. Beyond subsidies and sales charts, the real determinants of success are turning...
India's EV component market booms to 2032, with batteries still the weak link
India's electric vehicle market crossed a symbolic threshold in 2025, with EVs accounting for roughly 9.5% of all vehicle sales, up from 8.1% a year...
Tech & AI
AI's carbon math: The technology helps oil as much as it helps solar, and that is the problem
Artificial intelligence is usually credited with making renewable energy smarter and cleaner. A new peer-reviewed study argues the fuller picture is considerably less reassuring. AI,...
AEM electrolysers enter the frame: India’s hydrogen push begins to explore next-generation pathways
AEM electrolysers are emerging as a promising next-generation technology in India’s green hydrogen push, offering a potential balance between cost and performance. By reducing reliance...
Batteries evolve into smart system assets as India’s power technology stack deepens
India’s battery storage systems are evolving from passive assets into intelligent, multi-functional components of the power sector. Advances in chemistry, power electronics and digital control...
IIT Madras develops viable alternative to conventional Li-ion
Researchers have successfully researched upon an alternative to conventional lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries for industrial usage, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) told media. With...
Global
UAE’s $25bn India tranche, Actis’s $2bn Leo platform and Rezolv’s $635m solar financing
UAE signals second $25bn India tranche, advancing $100bn investment ambition At the 14th meeting of the India-UAE High Level Joint Task Force on Investments in...
EQT’s $50bn India bet, Papua LNG moves toward FID, €682bn renewables surge
ExxonMobil takes Papua LNG operatorship as $4bn savings advance FID TotalEnergies has announced that ExxonMobil will assume operatorship of the Papua LNG project as partners...
ExxonMobil takes over Papua LNG as $4bn savings push $14bn project toward FID
TotalEnergies has announced that ExxonMobil will assume operatorship of the Papua LNG project as partners advance the $14 billion development toward a final investment decision,...
America's systematic $2.6bn critical minerals campaign: What it means for India
US DOE backs seven critical-minerals R&D programmes as US push to break China’s grip deepens The US Department of Energy's Office of Critical Minerals and...
Climate
Climate
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#India
#Net Zero
#Climate Finance
India’s US$89.5-billion heat budget is missing the children it was built to protect
Two studies released within weeks of each other put a hard number on what climate change is already costing Indian children: an extra month of...
India’s climate finance paradox: The money is flowing to emissions, not vulnerability
India’s climate transition is becoming increasingly attractive to private capital. Solar, storage, transmission, carbon markets and carbon utilisation all offer identifiable assets or revenue streams....
Bonn’s uncomfortable truth: The climate fight is no longer just about cutting emissions
For years, global climate negotiations revolved around emissions targets, renewable energy deployment and climate finance. The Bonn Climate Conference of 2026 revealed a more complex...
India’s solar boom is running into an unexpected obstacle: Dirty air
India’s solar expansion is breaking records, but a hidden challenge is emerging. Rising air pollution is reducing the amount of sunlight reaching solar panels, cutting...