Status of India’s Renewable Energy Commitments for the Paris Agreement

India is the world's third largest producer and consumer of electricity. The aggregate electricity demand in India is expected to grow from 1913 TWh in 2015 to about 2800 TWh by 2030. In its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) document, India has committed to meet 40% of this demand from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. To meet this goal, India plans to increase its installed capacity of clean energy to 500 GW. The breakup of the 500 GW is 350 GW from solar, 140 GW from wind, and the remaining from nuclear, small hydro and biomass power. In this paper, we examine whether India is on track to meet these ambitious targets. Wind power currently accounts for about 10% of India's total installed power generation capacity and generates nearly 4% of the total electricity. The installed wind power capacity has reached 36.625 GW and about 5 GW of new capacity is under construction. India's solar installed capacity has reached 28.18 GW of which 10 GW was installed in the last one year alone. The installed capacity of nuclear is currently 6.78 GW and is on track to reach 20 GW by 2030. New wind and solar is now 20% cheaper than existing coal power price. Managing the rising penetration of renewables in the grid is becoming a major challenge. Many thermal plants are operating at low capacity factors and the addition of new coal plants has slowed considerably. India needs to continue to invest heavily in renewables and grid modernization to meet its stated goals.