India is adding 4 to 5 GW of power capacity every month to augment the current power capacity of 514 GW, as national power demand is expected to double by 2040. Recently, India successfully met peak power demand of 250 GW during solar hours and 237 GW during non-solar hours.
Stating that India has moved from dealing with power shortages to ensuring universal access to energy, Union Minister of Power and Housing & Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar said that smart meters are being rolled out across the country with an outlay of $3.03 trillion to reduce losses for discoms and help them move towards profitability. The minister added that the SHANTI Bill will help India achieve the target of 100 GW nuclear capacity by 2047.
India operates one of the largest synchronous grids in the world, with an inter-regional transfer capacity of 120 GW. The country has added over 178 GW of renewable capacity since 2014, which mainly includes 130 GW of solar capacity, 32.9 GW of wind capacity, and 9.9 GW of large hydro capacity.
Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal said that India will soon have 5 lakh circuit kilometres (ckm) of transmission lines. In the past decade, India has added 2.05 lakh circuit kilometres (ckm) of transmission lines, 852 GVA of transmission capacity and 84.34 GW of inter-regional capacity, even as the Power Ministry estimates $345 billion of investment potential in electricity generation, $68.22 billion in transmission and distribution, and $35 billion in energy storage.
Under the Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) alone, 48 GW of renewable energy transmission capacity has been commissioned, 172 GW is under construction, and 18 GW is under bidding.
The country has identified pumped storage project (PSP) potential of 258 GW to date, of which 7 GW has been commissioned and more than 17 GW is expected to be added by 2030. As part of encouraging battery storage, India has approved viability gap funding for 43 gigawatt hours (GWh). The minister and the secretary were speaking at the curtain-raiser of the Bharat Electricity Summit 2026, slated to be held from March 19 to 22 in New Delhi.
