India’s better energy path using cheap electrotech

A recent report from the think tank Ember says that cheap electrotech is enabling India to industrialize without the long fossil detour taken by China and the West. This analysis compares India and China’s energy paths at equivalent levels of economic development, using data from the World Bank for gross domestic product, Ember for electricity and the International Energy Agency for energy balances.

The Ember Insight points out that where China built on coal, India is building on sun. India is forging a better path to the electrotech future of energy. Cheap solar and batteries are enabling India to develop without the long fossil detour taken by the West and China.

A November 2025 Ember report points out that India overtook Germany to become the world’s third largest generator of electricity from wind and solar in 2024. With fossil fuels accounting for 78% of generation in 2024, the power sector is India’s largest emissions contributor. Power sector emissions have grown over the last two decades due to expansion of coal generation. Despite this, the country’s per capita emissions are well below the global average due to low per capita electricity use. However, coal’s share in meeting new electricity demand is now falling. In 2024, Coal generation met 64% of India’s electricity demand growth, a sharp drop from 91% in 2023. India is one of only ten countries planning to triple renewable generation capacity from 2022 levels by 2030. By October 2024, the country had achieved 200 GW of installed renewables capacity en route to its 2030 goal of 500 GW. Ember analysis suggests that the country would reach 42% renewable electricity generation by 2030 under current plans.

The earlier quoted Insight says that when we compare India today with China at equivalent income levels ($11,000 PPP in 2012), several observations emerge – rapid solar deployment, much lower coal use, rapid growth in, much lower oil demand for transport, and a similar rapid electrification pathway. India’s electrification rate is nearly 20%, comparable to China’s level in 2012, and is growing relentlessly by around five percentage points per decade. The benefits are substantial. This energy path avoids deep fossil fuel dependency while positioning the country to supply electrotech to the world – a new path for emerging economies. India is showing other countries how to take a cheaper, faster, cleaner pathway to the electrotech future.

The Introduction to the Insight highlights that India is harnessing some of the cheapest solar in the world to power its industrial rise – bypassing an expensive, insecure, fossil-burning interlude. Where China and the West took the long road, India is taking a shortcut that has consequences, both at home and abroad. It offers a faster, cheaper route to growing electricity. It means greater energy sovereignty at an earlier stage of development. It can position India as a third pole of influence in a world where energy is being reshaped by electrotech and trade by Sino-American competition.

The report adds that over the last two decades, the cost of core electrotech like EVs, solar panels and batteries have plummeted. To put in perspective, in 2004, when China crossed 1500 kWh of electricity use per capita, coal generation was about 10 times cheaper than nascent solar photovoltaics. Over the next decade, coal made up nearly 70% of the growth in China’s electricity generation. In contrast, as India crosses 1500 kWh of electricity use per capita, now, solar-plus-storage costs around half as much as new coal plants. This gap is widening as solar and battery costs fall along predictable learning curves, while coal power becomes more expensive with declining utilisation. Transport too – in 2011, when China reached road transport oil demand of 150 litres of gasoline equivalent per capita, batteries were 10 times more expensive than they are now, and the EV industry barely existed. Meanwhile, India’s road oil demand at 96 litres per capita, is unlikely to ever reach even 150 litres per capita. EVs are already undercutting internal combustion engines on price. As the report states, the implication is that the energy pathway that makes economic sense for India today, as it rapidly industrializes, is not what made sense for China when it made the same journey.