India’s Power Sector Must Plan for Climate Resilience

This briefing by RMI argues that India's power sector is insufficiently prepared for the increasing frequency of climate-induced extreme weather events. It advocates for a shift toward resilience-based planning, including grid hardening, the adoption of flexible energy sources, and the creation of system redundancies to prevent cascading failures across critical services and transportation.

• India is highly susceptible to climate change, ranking as the fifth most vulnerable country globally. This vulnerability manifests as rising heat stress, weakening Himalayan glacial mass, and an increased frequency of droughts, storms, and floods, as evidenced by the flash flood that destroyed the Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower plant in Uttarakhand.
• The risk of grid failure due to climate events will extend beyond the power sector to create cascading effects on other end-use sectors. This includes critical services like food storage and healthcare, as well as transportation, which previously relied on a separate supply chain that shielded it from grid risks.
• To build resilience, India must increase system flexibility and backup energy sources. Recommended measures include the use of decentralized renewable energy, hybrid systems (such as wind and solar), advanced renewable forecasting, and utility-scale battery storage, the cost of which has dropped by 89 percent since 2010.
• India's electricity distribution infrastructure currently suffers from poor design and construction standards, particularly outside urban areas. The authors argue for 'grid hardening' and higher design standards to withstand climate shocks, suggesting that costs can be optimized by prioritizing infrastructure that supports critical services and analyzing the remaining useful life of assets against disaster risk data.

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} }