The National Electricity Plan (NEP) for 2022–2032, with a proposed investment of Rs. 33,60,594 crore, was announced by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) on Wednesday. The plan aims to increase the share of non-fossil fuel capacity to about 70%.
“The share of non-fossil based capacity is expected to increase from around 42.5% at present to 57.4% by the end of 2026-27 and further to 68.4% by the end of 2031-32,” the Ministry of Electricity stated in a statement. The NEP document estimates that India’s peak power demand will be 277.2 GW in 2026–2027 and 366.4 GW in 2031–2022.
According to the ministry, the total amount needed to finance the addition of generation capacity is expected to be Rs 14,54,188 crore for the 2022–2027 period and Rs 19,06,406 crore for the 2027–2032 period.
The estimated installed capacity for 2026–2027 is 609,591 MW, which is made up of 336,553 MW of renewable energy and 273,038 MW of conventional energy. It is predicted to be 900,422 MW in 2031-32, made up of 596,275 MW of renewable energy and 304,147 MW of conventional energy. “The projection of total capacity addition is in line with the country’s target to achieve a non-fossil-based installed capacity of around 500 GW by the year 2029-30,” the ministry stated.
According to NEP forecasts, by 2026–2027, there will be a need for energy storage with a capacity of 16.13 GW/82.37 GWh, 7.45 GW/47.65 GWh for PSP-based storage, and 8.68 GW/34.72 GWh for BESS–based storage.
By 2031-32, the required storage capacity rises to 73.93 GW (26.69 GW PSP and 47.24 GW BESS), with a total storage of 411.4 GWh (175.18 GWh from PSP and 236.22 GWh from BESS). In addition to the expected requirement of 28.9 MT of coal imports for the facilities intended to run on imported coal, the domestic coal requirement has been estimated to be 866.4 million tonnes for 2026–2027 and 1,025.8 MT for 203–31.
