Senior power and climate policy analyst Shankar Sharma has urged the Ministry of Power and other senior policymakers to undertake an urgent review of India’s power-sector priorities, citing rising renewable-energy curtailment, transmission bottlenecks, delays in battery storage projects and the growing financial and ecological costs of conventional power infrastructure.
In a representation to the Secretary, Ministry of Power, Sharma said recent developments pointed to an increasing mismatch between electricity-demand growth, renewable-energy capacity addition and the ability of the transmission network to absorb and utilise that generation.
Sharma referred to reports that 8,133 GWh of solar generation was curtailed between April and June 2026, which he said represented more than 10% of potential solar output during the quarter. He also cited reports that India’s battery energy storage system (BESS) pipeline could reach 45–50 GWh, while 8–9 GWh of projects faced delay risks because of weak project economics and limited implementation experience among some developers.
He further referred to estimates that India may require around Rs 9.20 lakh crore in investment to expand and modernise its transmission grid, and cited an estimate of more than 61,000 circuit kilometres of additional inter-state transmission capacity required during FY27.
“All these developments indicate the escalating mismatch between demand growth in electricity, RE capacity addition and the network capability to satisfactorily make use of the same,” Sharma said in his representation.
He argued that the resulting financial and economic implications—including lost renewable generation and revenue losses for developers—should receive greater policy attention. Sharma cited reports of renewable-energy projects experiencing very high levels of curtailment because transmission infrastructure was not available, with some industry estimates putting losses for affected companies at substantial levels.
Push for distributed renewable generation
Sharma proposed that a larger share of future renewable-energy capacity should be developed at distribution-voltage levels, particularly through distributed resources such as rooftop solar photovoltaic systems.
According to him, greater reliance on distributed generation could reduce the requirement for new transmission lines while also limiting land-acquisition requirements, capital expenditure, environmental impacts and project-completion risks associated with large transmission projects.
He also called for BESS to be prioritised over pumped-storage hydropower projects for integrating additional renewable generation, particularly because pumped-storage projects can have gestation periods of several years.
Sharma proposed that BESS should become an essential component of renewable-energy projects above a specified capacity threshold, suggesting 5 MW at a single location as one possible benchmark. To address delays in BESS deployment, he suggested changes in tender conditions, including periodic review of BESS service charges and mandatory prior project-management experience for developers.
Calls for Integrated Electricity Planning
A central demand in Sharma’s representation is the adoption of an Integrated Electricity Resource Planning (IERP) mechanism, supported by technology-neutral assessment of societal costs and electricity planning at the district and state levels.
He urged policymakers to examine whether such a framework could provide an institutional foundation for India’s electricity planning through 2040 and towards 2050–2060.
Sharma said electricity planning should give greater consideration to energy efficiency, demand-side management, distributed renewable-energy systems, BESS at substations and mini- and smart-grid systems rather than relying predominantly on large conventional generation and transmission projects.
He also questioned the continued emphasis on coal-based, large hydropower, nuclear and pumped-storage projects, arguing that their financial, resource and ecological implications should be assessed alongside alternative technologies.
Virtual Power Plants
Sharma additionally called for India to study the virtual power plant (VPP) model, under which distributed resources such as residential batteries, electric vehicles and small-scale energy-storage systems can potentially be coordinated as a larger electricity resource.
He argued that such an approach could help India tap distributed storage capacity while reducing dependence on large-scale storage infrastructure and associated capital and ecological costs.
The representation also referred to recent reports concerning coal-plant fuel shortages, a thermal power plant remaining idle amid a power shortage in Kerala, new coal-power investments, declining groundwater resources and forest diversion for hydropower projects. Sharma said these developments demonstrated the need for a more precautionary approach to electricity planning.
“There is a critical need to take a ‘proactive and precautionary approach’ instead of ‘reactive actions’ to minimise the costs/risks to our communities in the power sector,” he said.
Sharma has also copied his representation to the Union ministers for Power and Finance, the Union Minister of State for Power and the Vice-Chairperson of NITI Aayog, urging them to consider the proposed policy framework while the country’s emerging national power-sector policies are finalised.
He specifically requested that the government examine the financial, economic and ecological implications of continuing with conventional infrastructure expansion without an integrated, technology-neutral electricity-resource planning framework.
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