Energy transition will need more than chasing the sun or the wind

  • January 03, 2026
  • Geography & Environment

Indian Express

Energy transition will need more than chasing the sun or the wind

Core Theme and Context

The article argues that India’s energy transition has entered a second, more complex phase. While renewable generation capacity—especially solar and wind—has expanded rapidly, the central challenge has shifted from capacity creation to system integration. The piece situates this problem within India’s power-sector realities: financially stressed distribution companies (DISCOMs), outdated market design, and insufficient flexibility in grids and tariffs.

The core proposition is that clean energy transition is no longer a generation problem but a governance, market, and institutional problem.

Key Arguments Presented

1. Distribution Reform Is the Critical Bottleneck

The article identifies DISCOMs as the weakest link in India’s energy transition. Despite investments in smart meters, infrastructure upgrades, and reform schemes, financial stress persists due to:

  • Cross-subsidisation distortions
  • Under-recovery of fixed network costs
  • Loss of high-paying consumers to rooftop solar and open access

The argument is that renewable expansion without fixing distribution economics creates systemic instability.

2. Tariff Design Must Move Beyond Volumetric Pricing

A major analytical thrust is the inadequacy of current tariff structures. Volumetric tariffs fail to reflect:

  • Fixed costs of networks
  • Time-varying cost of electricity
  • The value of flexibility

The author argues that time-of-day tariffs, while necessary, are insufficient unless paired with automation, smart appliances, and consumer responsiveness.

3. Technology Alone Cannot Deliver Demand Flexibility

The article stresses that smart meters and price signals do not automatically translate into demand response. Households and firms often lack:

  • Information
  • Automation
  • Incentives to respond dynamically

Without technologies like smart thermostats, EV smart charging, and automated controls, demand-side management remains aspirational rather than operational.

4. Wholesale Market Reform Is Essential

The piece highlights structural inefficiencies in India’s wholesale power markets:

  • Fragmentation across contracts and states
  • Limited role of power exchanges in actual dispatch
  • Under-utilisation of least-cost generation across regions

The author advocates a shift toward national, market-based economic dispatch, enabling renewables to be integrated efficiently across geographies.

5. Captive Power as an Untapped Flexibility Resource

Captive power plants are identified as a large but underutilised source of system flexibility. Integrating them into wholesale markets could:

  • Increase liquidity
  • Reduce system costs
  • Improve reliability

This reframes captive generation from a private fallback to a public system asset.

Author’s Stance

The author adopts a systems-oriented, techno-economic stance:

  • Supportive of renewable expansion
  • Critical of simplistic “capacity-only” narratives
  • Strongly in favour of market reform, price rationalisation, and institutional redesign

The tone is analytical and reformist, prioritising efficiency and system optimisation over headline capacity targets.

Implicit Biases and Editorial Leanings

1. Market-Efficiency Bias

The article places strong faith in price signals, market-based dispatch, and competition. This may underplay:

  • Political resistance to tariff reform
  • Distributional consequences for vulnerable consumers
  • Administrative constraints at state and DISCOM levels

2. Limited Social Equity Lens

While cross-subsidies are critiqued, the article gives limited attention to:

  • Energy affordability
  • Welfare implications of tariff rationalisation
  • Just transition concerns for low-income households

3. Technocratic Framing

The analysis assumes high institutional capacity to implement complex reforms, which may not hold uniformly across states.

Pros and Cons of the Argument

Pros

  • Correctly diagnoses integration, not generation, as the core challenge
  • Links renewable success to grid economics and market design
  • Avoids techno-utopianism about renewables alone
  • Offers concrete reform pathways in retail and wholesale markets

Cons

  • Underestimates political economy barriers to tariff reform
  • Limited discussion of consumer protection mechanisms
  • Assumes behavioural change can be engineered primarily through markets
  • Less emphasis on decentralised and community-based energy solutions

Policy Implications

1. Power-Sector Reform Must Shift Focus

Policy must move from:

  • Capacity targets → system efficiency
  • Subsidy management → tariff rationalisation
  • Fragmented markets → integrated national dispatch

2. Demand-Side Management as Infrastructure

Demand response, automation, and storage should be treated as core infrastructure, not add-ons.

3. Redefining the Role of DISCOMs

DISCOMs must evolve from passive intermediaries to active system optimisers, managing flexibility, data, and demand rather than just billing and collection.

Real-World Impact

  • Without reform, renewable growth may increase financial stress in DISCOMs
  • Poor integration risks curtailment of clean power
  • Consumers may face rising costs or unreliable supply
  • Successful reform could lower system costs, improve reliability, and accelerate decarbonisation

For citizens, the transition’s success will be judged not by megawatts installed, but by reliable, affordable, and clean electricity delivery.

UPSC GS Paper Alignment

GS Paper III – Economy and Environment

  • Energy security
  • Power-sector reforms
  • Renewable integration and climate change

GS Paper II – Governance

  • Regulatory institutions
  • Centre–State coordination
  • Market reforms and public service delivery

GS Paper I – Geography

  • Resource distribution
  • Regional imbalance in energy generation and demand

Balanced Conclusion and Future Perspective

The article persuasively argues that India’s energy transition cannot be completed by chasing solar and wind capacity alone. The next phase demands deep reform of tariffs, markets, and institutions that govern how electricity is priced, moved, and consumed.

However, reforms must be:

  • Politically feasible
  • Socially equitable
  • Institutionally realistic

 

The future of India’s clean energy transition will depend less on how fast it builds renewables and more on whether it can redesign its power system to use them intelligently, fairly, and efficiently.