For the first time since the 1960s, coal's contribution to India's power production capacity falls below 50%

According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis's (IEEFA) most recent POWERup quarterly report, renewable energy contributed 71.5% of India's record 13,669 megawatts (MW) of new power production capacity installed in the first quarter of this year (January–March).

For the first time since the 1960s, coal's percentage of India's overall power generating capacity fell below 50% in the first quarter of 2024.

According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis's (IEEFA) most recent POWERup quarterly report, renewable energy contributed 71.5% of India's record 13,669 megawatts (MW) of new power production capacity installed in the first quarter of this year (January–March).

For the first time since the 1960s, the proportion of coal, including lignite, in India's overall power production capacity fell below 50%.

The trend toward renewable energy is well ahead of India's goal of attaining 50 percent of its total power generating capacity from non-fossil fuel-based sources by 2030, according to the research.

The reduction in the proportion of coal used in power generating capacity is consistent with a worldwide trend; in 2023, the demand for coal in the G7 nations fell to historic lows not seen since 1900.

In an effort to expedite the shift, the G7 nations extended their earlier promise to stop constructing any new coal-fired power plants by 2035 and committed to phase out all unabated coal power output by that time.

In general, "unabated" refers to the use of coal, oil, and gas without any attempts to reduce emissions.

World leaders came to a historic agreement in December of last year at the United Nations' COP28 climate change summit to shift away from fossil fuels that overheat the globe and quadruple the amount of renewable energy produced globally by 2030.

The federal government's annual objective of 50 GW was surpassed by a record 69 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy tenders issued in India in the fiscal year 2023–2024, according to the report.

"After a downturn from 2019 to 2022 due to supply-chain issues as well as global price spikes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic or Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the global economy has rebounded and gone as strength to strength," Vibhuti Garg, IEEFA Director for South Asia,

India is now third in the globe after the United States and China in terms of solar power output, according to Ember's fifth annual Global Electricity Review of 80 nations.

India, which was ranked ninth in 2015, has now surpassed Japan, which shares Germany's continuously high coal consumption with other G7 members.

In 2023, solar energy produced a record 5.5 percent of the world's electricity, with 5.8 percent coming from solar in India.

For the nineteenth year in a row, solar power continued to be the fastest-growing energy source globally in 2023, producing more than twice as much new electricity as coal.

In terms of terawatt hours, or TWh, India had the fourth-largest growth in solar production globally in 2023 (+18 TWh), behind only by China (+156 TWh), the US (+33 TWh), and Brazil (+22 TWh). In 2023, the top four nations for solar growth together constituted 75% of the increase.

India saw a rapid increase in the share of solar energy in power production from 0.5 percent in 2015 to 5.8 percent in 2023.

The "Net Zero Emissions" scenario from the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that by 2030, solar energy will account for 22% of the world's power production.

Accelerating the shift to cleaner generating sources is essential for India to accomplish its developmental and climatic objectives, since electricity production accounts for roughly half of the nation's yearly carbon dioxide emissions (1.18 gigatonnes in 2023).

According to the IEA, doubling energy efficiency and tripling the world's renewable energy capacity are necessary to keep average temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius—a politically-imposed ceiling established in 2015 to stop the effects of climate change from becoming worse.

One of the few nations hoping to treble its renewable capacity by 2030 is India.