Ember’s response to India’s draft National Electricity Policy- 2026

Ember provides a response to India's draft National Electricity Policy 2026, arguing for a shift from sequential to co-optimised generation and transmission planning to address bottlenecks and stranded assets. The brief recommends integrating grid-enhancing technologies to manage stability as renewable energy penetration increases, unbundling state transmission utilities to allow private sector participation, and reforming DISCOM procurement to avoid over-reliance on long-term coal contracts. It also emphasizes the need for a robust data-sharing and cybersecurity framework to manage the increasing volume of electricity data from private aggregators and smart infrastructure.

• India's current sequential approach to power planning, where transmission follows generation siting, has led to systemic coordination challenges, including an estimated 50 GW of stranded assets as of October 2025 and a renewable energy (RE) pipeline in the Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) queue extending to 2032. Ember advocates for a "co-optimised generation–transmission strategy" to align expansion with network readiness and system-wide costs.
• The rise of inverter-based resources from renewables is reducing system inertia and increasing vulnerability to frequency disturbances. To mitigate this, Ember suggests a least-cost planning approach to deploy grid-forming inverters, synchronous condensers, and other system-strength support mechanisms based on forward-looking technical studies.
• To accelerate state-level transmission build-out and reduce fiscal pressure on utilities, Ember recommends a structural separation within State Transmission Utilities (STUs) between planning functions and asset-owning/construction functions. This unbundling would allow for increased private sector participation and competitive bidding for intra-state grids.
• DISCOMs often over-procure long-term contracted capacity to ensure reliability, which can lead to surplus capacity and long-term financial liabilities, particularly with coal-based assets. Ember argues that resource adequacy should focus on the least-cost pathway to meeting demand, utilizing power exchanges and bilateral trading to avoid low-utilisation assets.
• The growth of private aggregators, smart metering, and peer-to-peer trading requires a new data-sharing and governance framework to prevent privacy breaches and data misuse. Ember specifically recommends that critical grid and consumer data be stored within India's geographic boundaries to reduce external vulnerabilities.

APA

Das, D. (2026). Ember’s response to India’s draft National Electricity Policy- 2026. Ember. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/02/Embers-response-to-Indias-draft-National-Electricity-Policy-2026.pdf

Chicago

Das, Duttatreya. Ember’s response to India’s draft National Electricity Policy- 2026. Ember, 2026. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/02/Embers-response-to-Indias-draft-National-Electricity-Policy-2026.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Das |first1=Duttatreya |title=Ember’s response to India’s draft National Electricity Policy- 2026 |publisher=Ember |date=16 February 2026 |url=https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/02/Embers-response-to-Indias-draft-National-Electricity-Policy-2026.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{das2026embers, author = {Das, Duttatreya}, title = {{Ember’s response to India’s draft National Electricity Policy- 2026}}, institution = {Ember}, year = {2026}, month = feb, url = {https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/02/Embers-response-to-Indias-draft-National-Electricity-Policy-2026.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }