The government has received long-term investment commitments of around $400 billion in renewable energy from companies operating in the field, Minister for New and Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi told Business Standard on Wednesday.
“I do not want to focus on any specific figure. Investments of ₹6 trillion-7 trillion, domestic and foreign, already came in the past two years, despite geopolitical disturbances. This is the highest investment achieved in a single sector during this time,” the minister said in an interaction at the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit and Expo 2026.
At the Conference of Parties in Glasgow in 2021, India made a commitment of achieving 500 gigawatt (Gw) of installed capacity of clean energy by 2030, along with achieving net-zero emission by 2070.
The minister added that an additional Rs 21 trillion is required in the sector by the end of 2030
“I am confident this investment will come and it will be sufficient for our capacity addition target (500 Gw by 2030). This investment will include renewable energy, transmission, storage and manufacturing projects,” he said.
Speaking about Cabinet approval for a ₹14,500 crore scheme of viability gap funding (VGF) to support the development of 92 Gw-hours of grid-scale energy-storage capacity over FY27-FY31, Joshi said it would benefit renewable energy with more pumped hydro projects and battery energy storage systems being added.
He said the solar-cell capacity, which stands at 47 Gw today, would increase to 70 Gw by December this year and 100 Gw by May-June next year.
Stating that the government was working on ways to support upstream components in the solar value chain, Joshi said the Ingot & Wafers manufacturing capacity, used to make solar cells, had risen to 9 Gw at present.
“We are planning for a support system such as VGF for polysilicon at an appropriate time and with the kind consent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
The government is targeting a non-fossil fuel power-generation capacity of 800 Gw over the next decade.
Speaking about the challenges in transmission, Joshi said the Centre was talking to state governments about the “right of way” and obstacles related to land acquisition.
He said: “Land has become costly everywhere in the world and in India as well. This issue has to be addressed.”
He said with the Green Energy Corridor Phase-III scheme approved, curtailment challenges in renewable energy would ease. The Union Cabinet recently approved the Green Energy Corridor Phase-III scheme to strengthen intra-state transmission by creating 51,126 circuit kilometres (ckm) of transmission lines to evacuate up to 135 Gw of renewable energy.
“While we have not assessed the number of substations in the 51,000-ckm transmission lines, there will be 50,000-55,000 of those. The existing ones will be strengthened and 10,000-15,000 substations will be created.”
Asked whether the recent export controls imposed by China on key solar-manufacturing technologies could affect India’s plans, Joshi said India had addressed the challenges whenever they came up. He pointed to the growth of the country’s module-manufacturing capacity to 172 Gw currently from 2 Gw 10 years ago.
