India's Grid Hits 50% Clean Capacity Five Years Early
A new BloombergNEF factbook shows India racing past its own clean-energy targets—while coal, EVs, and data centers complicate the next lap.
By The energy-climate Desk
India's power grid crossed a milestone in 2025 that wasn't supposed to arrive until 2030: non-fossil fuel technologies now account for more than 50% of installed capacity, five years ahead of the target set in India's Nationally Determined Contribution in 2022 [1].
The India Transition Factbook 2026, produced by BloombergNEF and commissioned by Bloomberg Philanthropies, maps how that happened—and where the gaps remain. Investors committed $72 billion to India's energy transition in 2025, equivalent to about 1.7% of GDP, making it the fifth-largest market for energy-transition investment globally [1]. India was also the second-largest market for annual solar and wind capacity additions in 2025, behind only China [1].
Hydrogen is emerging as an unexpected bright spot. Indian firms signed binding contracts in the first four months of 2026 to supply 0.3 million metric tons of clean hydrogen annually—more than companies in any other country—lifting India to third globally for cumulative contracted volumes [1].
The picture is murkier on EVs. BNEF modeling suggests India will fall short of most of its 2030 targets—80% of two- and three-wheeler sales, 70% of commercial vehicles, and 30% of private cars—with three-wheelers the exception [1]. Data centers add another wrinkle: demand could climb from 11 terawatt-hours in 2025 to 636 terawatt-hours by 2050, much of it initially served by a grid where coal still supplies about 68% of electricity [1].
What the factbook makes plain is that speed and scale can coexist with stubborn structural limits. The easy wins are logged; the harder work is designing policy for the sectors where momentum hasn't yet materialised.
BNEF projects India's non-fossil share will exceed 60% in 2028—seven years ahead of the revised NDC—and modeling of an economics-led shift shows that energy imports could fall to 3.1% of GDP in 2035, from 5.3% in 2025, before declining further to 1.5% by mid-century [1].