Despite Coal being the paradox India achieves clean energy milestone.

Aug 2025 : The coal sector remains a crucial contributor to India’s energy mix, powering over 74% of the country’s electricity and sustaining key industries like steel and cement, according to the Ministry Of Coal, Government of India. Coal is needed to fulfill power demands while storage capacity lags behind the surge in renewable sources of power.

This reliance places India in a challenging position globally. The country ranks behind only China and the United States for carbon emissions overall. But analysts have pointed out that in a country of 1.4 billion people, per capita emissions are only one-third of the global average, according to official figures. India has set itself the daunting challenge of reducing emissions by 45% by 2030. At the same time, electricity needs are expected to more than double by 2047, according to the country’s Center for Science and Environment.

The challenge becomes even more apparent when examining India’s continued dependence on coal. Far from decreasing its usage, the globe’s second-largest consumer of coal pushed up production of the dirty fossil fuel by 5% last year, mining one billion tons (1,000,000,000), according to the coal ministry. “Coal remains crucial“, the ministry said. The stance highlights the practical challenges of India’s energy transition.

Non-fossil fuels now account for half of India’s installed energy capacity — years ahead of schedule — but the third-largest greenhouse gas polluter remains deeply reliant on coal for electricity generation.

Minister of Renewable Energy, Prahlad Joshi had affirmed it to be a landmark in India’s energy transition journey, after releasing the data in July. “Five years early”, he added, referring to India’s 2030 target under the Paris Agreement, and marking a step to the country’s stated goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2070.

But while the 50% milestone is significant, climate experts have flagged that the figures which refer only to potential energy production cites just a part of the story. Overall, actual generation from renewable sources is still quite low, and the reason is stark: nearly three-quarters of electricity continues to come from heavily polluting coal-burning power plants.

India is building one of the world’s largest solar and wind energy farms, spread over a desert the size of Singapore. It is followed by hydro and wind, and also nuclear power — which makes up less than 2% of the total mix. But solar and wind create steady power only when the conditions are right, and India’s storage capacity is a meager 505 MWh which is far lower than it can generate.

The storage bottleneck has drawn the attention of the renewable energy minister, which demonstrated while Prahlad Joshi in an inaugural function stated India’s renewable energy potential was “growing fast” and “adding 25–30 GW every year“. He added: “But without storage, we will either waste that energy or fall back on coal when renewables dip.”

Building storage based on batteries requires rare earth metals, with rival and neighbor China controlling 70% of the world’s supplies. India still remains dependent on China as per official sources.

To mitigate, India is considering is pump-hydro energy storage projects. When wind and solar plants produce excess energy, water is pumped into high reservoirs. That stored energy can then be released to generate power when demand surges. But industry experts believe the transition to cleaner power requires a multi-pronged approach. The transition to cleaner power must come from “emission intensity reduction” of often inefficient coal plants, combined with better integrated renewable energy in the grid that “will actually make the shift happen“.

Team Maverick