Low access to debt capital remains one of the key barriers to achieving the Indian government’s target of 40GW of rooftop solar installations by 2022.

This report examines the challenge of managing India’s renewable energy growth with increased flexibility in the system. This component specifically tries to address the dual issue of flexibility and stranded assets and looks at the plausibility of using existing coal-based power plants as flexibility reserves.

India’s economy is growing rapidly, and with it, so is energy demand. The IEA-IEO (2015) estimates that India’s aggregate energy consumption will more than double by 2040. The Government of India plans to install 175 GW of renewable energy projects by 2022 and 275 GW by 2027.

Mobilizing investments by institutional investors, foreign and domestic, is a requisite for India to meet its clean energy targets. India needs an additional ~450 billion of capital by 2040 to reach ~480GW of renewable energy capacity.