India’s Power Sector Must Plan for Climate Resilience

The briefing highlights the vulnerability of India's power sector to climate-induced extreme weather, citing the Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower plant disaster. It argues that current infrastructure is insufficient for future needs and calls for a shift toward flexibility, decentralized renewables, and higher design standards for grid hardening to protect critical services and social resilience.

• India is highly susceptible to climate change, ranking as the fifth most vulnerable country globally, with rising heat stress contributing to glacial mass loss in the Himalayas and an increase in droughts, storms, and floods.
• The risk of grid failure due to climate events will extend beyond the power sector to impact healthcare, food storage, and transportation as the economy moves toward greater electrification.
• Building energy resilience requires increasing flexibility through decentralized renewable energy, hybrid systems, utility-scale battery storage—which has seen costs drop by 89 percent since 2010—advanced forecasting, geographical interconnection, and demand management.
• India's distribution networks suffer from poor design and construction standards, necessitating a shift toward 'grid hardening' and higher design standards to withstand climate shocks, particularly for infrastructure supporting critical services.

APA

Ningthoujam, J., & Singh, N. (2021). India’s Power Sector Must Plan for Climate Resilience. RMI. https://rmi.org/resources/indias-power-sector-must-plan-for-climate-resilience/

Chicago

Ningthoujam, Jagabanta, and Nuvodita Singh. India’s Power Sector Must Plan for Climate Resilience. RMI, 2021. https://rmi.org/resources/indias-power-sector-must-plan-for-climate-resilience/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ningthoujam |first1=Jagabanta |last2=Singh |first2=Nuvodita |title=India’s Power Sector Must Plan for Climate Resilience |publisher=RMI |date=1 March 2021 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/indias-power-sector-must-plan-for-climate-resilience/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ningthoujam2021indias, author = {Ningthoujam, Jagabanta and Singh, Nuvodita}, title = {{India’s Power Sector Must Plan for Climate Resilience}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2021}, month = mar, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/indias-power-sector-must-plan-for-climate-resilience/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }