RE-powering India’s heavy industries: 20 GW today, 24/7 tomorrow

India's heavy industries—steel, cement, and aluminium—have a 20 GW profitable opportunity to integrate solar power today through green energy open access, potentially reducing annual emissions by 29 million tonnes. While sourcing 50% renewable energy (RE) is currently cost-effective without storage, achieving 24/7 RE is prohibitively expensive, costing up to 3.5 times the price of standard RE generation due to the massive battery storage and capacity oversizing required. The report highlights that steel offers the most immediate cost-saving potential, whereas aluminium remains heavily reliant on captive coal power, requiring stronger regulatory mandates to transition.

• A 20 GW solar market opportunity exists for the steel, cement, and aluminium sectors in India's top five producing states using green energy open access, which could eliminate 29 million tonnes of emissions annually.
• Steel is the most promising sector for immediate RE adoption, with a 9.4 GW opportunity. Solar power can reduce operational costs for standalone electric arc furnaces (EAF) by up to 10% and for direct reduced iron-arc furnace (DRI-EAF) plants by 2-5%.
• The cement sector has a 6.9 GW RE opportunity, but cost benefits are marginal compared to steel due to high cross-subsidy surcharges in top-producing states. Captive RE is the most viable route, offering potential savings of up to ₹0.5/kWh in Karnataka.
• Aluminium presents a 4.1 GW opportunity but faces a difficult transition because it relies almost entirely on low-cost captive coal power plants (CPPs). Transitioning will likely require regulatory 'sticks' rather than cost-based 'carrots'.
• Sourcing 50% of industrial electricity from variable RE is currently cost-effective and viable without battery storage, utilizing an optimal mix of solar and wind and leveraging grid banking.
• Achieving 24/7 RE is significantly more expensive, costing an average of ₹9.5/kWh, which is up to 3.5 times the cost of plain vanilla RE generation. This is driven by the need for massive solar oversizing and battery storage, with batteries accounting for up to 60% of the total cost.
• The financial and technical difficulty of RE integration increases sharply beyond 80% penetration. Moving from 90% to 100% (24/7) RE is the most cost-intensive phase, with the final 1% of penetration increasing the cost of supply by at least ₹2.5/kWh.
• Green tariffs offered by distribution companies (DISCOMs) could be a strategic tool to achieve 24/7 RE by meeting the final 30% of demand that is too expensive to cover via open-access storage.
• Odisha and Chhattisgarh are critical hubs for this transition, concentrating nearly 40% of the 20 GW open access solar opportunity due to their mineral wealth and supportive policies on surcharges.

APA

Das, D., & Rodrigues, N. (2025). RE-powering India’s heavy industries: 20 GW today, 24/7 tomorrow. Ember. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/04/RE-powering-Indias-heavy-industries_-20-GW-today-24_7-tomorrow.pdf

Chicago

Das, Duttatreya, and Neshwin Rodrigues. RE-powering India’s heavy industries: 20 GW today, 24/7 tomorrow. Ember, 2025. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/04/RE-powering-Indias-heavy-industries_-20-GW-today-24_7-tomorrow.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Das |first1=Duttatreya |last2=Rodrigues |first2=Neshwin |title=RE-powering India’s heavy industries: 20 GW today, 24/7 tomorrow |publisher=Ember |date=2 April 2025 |url=https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/04/RE-powering-Indias-heavy-industries_-20-GW-today-24_7-tomorrow.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{das2025repowering, author = {Das, Duttatreya and Rodrigues, Neshwin}, title = {{RE-powering India’s heavy industries: 20 GW today, 24/7 tomorrow}}, institution = {Ember}, year = {2025}, month = apr, url = {https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/04/RE-powering-Indias-heavy-industries_-20-GW-today-24_7-tomorrow.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }