Clean power investment in India has mostly chased generation capacity — more solar farms, more wind turbines, more gigawatts. What’s gotten less attention is everything that has to happen after a farm gets built: moving that power across the grid, and storing it when conditions aren’t ideal. On September 30, India’s Union Cabinet approved a ₹1.86 lakh crore ($19.42 billion) program, called PM-DHARA, to address both problems directly.
At a glance
- Total funding: India’s cabinet approved ₹1.86 lakh crore ($19.42 billion) for the PM-DHARA renewable energy program on September 30.
- Grid expansion: ₹1.36 lakh crore will strengthen state transmission networks, enabling the evacuation of up to 135 gigawatts of renewable power.
- Battery storage: ₹500 billion will fund incentives for 50 gigawatt-hours of battery energy storage systems.
Why clean power investment needs more than generation
India has been adding renewable capacity rapidly: total installed capacity, including large hydro, reached approximately 295.55 gigawatts as of August 31, 2026, according to ESG Times, citing the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. But building solar and wind farms faster than the grid can absorb their output creates a real bottleneck, since power generated in remote, resource-rich regions is often stranded if the transmission lines to carry it don’t exist yet.
The PM-DHARA program, short for Developing Harmonised and Accelerated Renewable Energy Access, combines the third phase of the Green Energy Corridor with large-scale battery storage support in a single package, according to Devdiscourse, which also confirmed the program’s full name.
Solving the other half of the problem: storage
Transmission alone doesn’t solve the deeper challenge of variable renewable power: solar and wind don’t generate electricity on demand, and Reuters reporting carried by the Daily Mirror states India currently lacks adequate storage to save the clean electricity it generates during the day for use after dark. The new battery incentive scheme targets 50 gigawatt-hours of storage capacity, intended to smooth out that daily mismatch between supply and demand, part of a broader wave of clean energy milestones taking shape across South Asia.
A target that’s still a long way off
India is aiming for 500 gigawatts of non-fossil power capacity by 2030, up from roughly 300 gigawatts today, according to Reuters. That’s a real, substantial increase, but it’s also a target the country has repeatedly had to revise its own infrastructure plans around, since transmission and storage buildout has lagged behind the pace of new generation coming online.
The program’s funding is approved, but building out hundreds of kilometers of new transmission lines and gigawatt-scale battery installations takes years, not months, meaning the practical benefits of this investment will arrive gradually rather than all at once.
Read more
For more on this story, see: ESG Times
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- India’s $109 billion renewable energy grid investment
- India’s Khavda renewable energy park in Gujarat
- The Good News for Humankind archive on clean & renewable energy
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