India’s Energy Transition: A Growing Country Facing Massive Energy Needs
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India has launched an impressive renewableenergy program. However, its consumption of and oil is expected to keep rising in the coming years. This shows how difficult it is to carry out an when the population is growing and people aspire to a higher standard of living, which drives energy demand sharply upward.
© SAM PANTHAKY / AFP - An image of India’s energy transition: a villager from Vahelal, near Ahmedabad, seeks shade under solar panels.
India: A Demographic Giant with Enormous Energy Needs
With 1.47 billion inhabitants in 2025, India is now the most populous country in the world, surpassing China. Its population is expected to continue growing, reaching nearly 1.5 billion by around 2030. Looking ahead to 2035, the country aims to rank among the world’s leading economies, driven by the rise of its middle class.
Urban expansion and modernization have been spectacular. In rural areas, according to the , about 700 million people have gained access to since the early 2000s. India has therefore almost fully resolved the issue of electricity access—an essential driver of development.
Rapid Economic Growth Is Driving an Explosion in Energy Demand
India has another major asset: its strength in research and advanced technologies. The country is now a global leader in data processing, artificial intelligence, and industrial automation. With longstanding experience in the nuclear sector, India is developing its own technology and conducting active research on fourthgeneration reactors (fastneutron reactors).
This demographic and economic boom means the Indian subcontinent needs everincreasing amounts of energy. Primaryenergy consumption has doubled since 1990 and is expected to double again by 2040. Electricity consumption rose by 50% between 2014 and 2024, and will further increase the demand for air conditioning. This growth is remarkable in absolute terms, even though percapita consumption remains only onethird of the global average.
An Energy Mix Dominated by Coal Despite the Rapid Rise of Renewables
This surge in electricity production continues to rely heavily on coal. Even though India increased its solar capacity by a factor of 25 and its wind capacity by a factor of 2 between 2014 and 2024, coal’s share in the electricity mix has barely changed: it remains close to 75%.
This is because coal is abundant, locally available, inexpensive, and supported by relatively modern thermal plants. India has the world’s fifthlargest coal reserves, and the coal sector employs millions of lowskilled workers. The government is trying to promote natural gas—which is less polluting—for electricity generation, but cost and socialstability issues make this difficult.
Natural gas is nonetheless gaining ground in a major energyconsuming sector: heating and cooking. Indians still rely heavily on , especially wood, which contributes to deforestation and health problems in rural areas. The situation is even worse in urban environments due to coalfired power plants on city outskirts and rapidly growing traffic. Pollution has reached alarming levels in the capital, New Delhi, where fineparticle concentrations are the highest in the world, according to the WHO (World Health Organization).
Reducing CO₂ Emissions While Continuing Economic Development
India’s greenhousegas (GHG) emissions have continued to rise over the past few decades. However, a report released at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, noted a slowdown in 2025, driven by more favorable weather conditions and the expansion of renewableenergy capacity.
For a long time, India was reluctant to commit to international climate agreements, citing the needs of its economic growth and highlighting the historical responsibility of wealthy nations. But the potentially disastrous effects of climate change—on monsoon patterns, the melting of Himalayan glaciers, and the increasing frequency of floods and cyclones—have convinced the country to firmly commit to reducing its emissions.
To achieve this, India is working to promote natural gas over coal and to expand electric mobility (especially small city cars, buses, taxis, and the countless twowheelers and rickshaws that crowd India’s major cities). The country is also improving . Like many nations with high growth demands, India relies on an indicator other than absolute emissions: the carbon intensity of GDP2. This indicator is expected to be reduced by at least onethird by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.
Sources:
- Carbon intensity is the ratio between a country’s CO₂ emissions and its GDP. The goal is to reduce it as much as possible by keeping emissions low while maintaining strong economic growth.
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