Coal stocks stabilise at a third of the norm as planners eye far more capacity
Coal stocks at power plants held near 20.8 million tonnes as the daily drawdown almost stopped. Yet 87 plants stayed critical, and the head of...
Latest
Evening power at US$0.39 a unit: How a wind lull pushed Tamil Nadu far beyond the exchange ceiling
Tamil Nadu’s peak demand has touched nearly 21,700 MW this October, almost 30% above the roughly 16,800 MW of a year ago, according to a media report. That is within a whisker of the 21,724 MW record set during July’s heatwave. The usual October cooling has not arrived, and the northeast monsoon is still awaited. Wind, which normally supplies about 3,000 MW in the state, fell to a negligible 10 MW. That left a peak-hour shortfall of around 1,000 MW,...
LNG at US$29.30: How Europe’s thin winter buffer and Qatar’s silence are repricing India’s gas
Asian spot LNG for December delivery rose to US$29.30 per mmBtu, the highest since December 2022, as Europe and Asia chased the same cargoes and...
Storage targets have nearly tripled, but two economies did most of the work
Global 2030 storage targets now add up to 822 GW, almost three times the level seen at COP29, but still well short of the 1,500...
Rural India’s US$5.7-billion credit gap: Why solar-powered livelihood tools wait for loans
India’s solar-powered livelihood tools, from dryers to cold rooms, show strong returns, with 87% of surveyed users reporting higher incomes. Yet adoption is under 3%...
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
Hormuz shock: How the US, Oman and Nigeria rewired LNG supply to India
India has rebuilt its LNG supply chain since the Iran war effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. A record of 287 cargoes from January to...
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...
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...
Energy Transition
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....
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...
Wires outlast chips: Why AI’s power boom is a US$970-billion-a-year grid bet
A global consultancy expects grid spending to reach US$970 billion a year by 2050, driven partly by AI. But the chips behind that demand may...
Policy
Policy
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#Solar
#India
#Discoms
Rooftop solar’s next phase: Why rules, not subsidies, will shape a US$7.9-billion scheme
India’s rooftop solar scheme has crossed 50 lakh homes, but its next phase is taking shape through rules, not cash. The government is weighing local...
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,...
Markets
India’s battery storage boom and $9bn Saudi power link test grid ambitions and energy security
India’s battery storage needs hit 236 GWh by FY32, requiring $36.1bn A Rubix Data Sciences report estimates India’s battery storage requirement at 236.22 GWh by...
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...
Corporate & Finance
India’s energy infrastructure draws fresh investment across grid, renewables and storage
India’s $19.3bn corridor targets 135 GW renewables and 50 GWh storage The Union Cabinet has approved Green Energy Corridor Phase III, with a total outlay...
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...
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,...
Power
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...
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...
Storage
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...
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...
Battery storage pipeline of 176.66 GWh meets a hard test: Turning tenders into working capacity
India’s battery energy storage market has moved from pilot projects to large-scale deployment. New capacity of 8.2 GWh was added in the first half of...
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
Hydrogen’s execution test: Why US$130 billion is not yet a market
Clean hydrogen has moved from pledges to plants, with 579 projects now committed and operational capacity growing fast. Yet barely 1% of the world’s hydrogen...
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...
Oil & Gas
Crude flows recover, diesel does not, and India’s refiners land on opposite sides
Brent stayed pinned near US$100 this week as G7 governments agreed a 100-million-barrel stock release and OPEC+ held quotas. Behind the headline, Gulf crude exports...
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...
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...
US eases Russian diesel curbs as Brent nears $106, but India’s tariff threat and pump prices remain
Brent climbed to about US$106 a barrel this week, as Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and ship strikes near Hormuz outweighed a US licence easing...
Coal
Coal Watch: India’s coal imports ease as sharp drop in coking shipments offsets stronger thermal arrivals
India’s coal imports fell 5.4% week-on-week to 3.80 MT during 4–10 October, as a stronger flow of steam coal was more than offset by a...
Coal is moving faster, yet 87 power plants still run close to empty
India’s coal stocks stopped falling as fast this week, with daily drawdown halved and rail loading hitting its target. Yet stock cover is only 6.6...
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...
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...
Mobility
Plugged in but underused: The arithmetic behind India’s charging boom
India added chargers at speed, from about 5,000 public stations in 2022 to 29,151 by December 2025. But utilisation of 1–3% leaves operators carrying high...
Who carries the risk? The US$15.5-billion bill for India's e-buses shows why only state fleets are going electric
India sold 5,412 electric buses in FY26, yet almost the entire fleet on the road belongs to state transport undertakings. The reason is less about...
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...
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
Global energy security drives fresh investment in grids, storage and infrastructure
South Africa’s $181bn investment drive targets infrastructure delivery South Africa has set a target of roughly US$181bn in investment over 2026–2030, spread across energy, mining,...
South Korea’s $747bn K-GX plan, Google’s $4.3bn nuclear deal and new energy policy
South Korea’s $747bn K-GX plan targets green steel, hydrogen and batteries by 2035 South Korea has launched K-GX (Korea-Green Transformation), a 1,000 trillion won (US$747bn)...
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...
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...