India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.
The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and cited by Bloomberg.
India’s annual installations of new coal-fired power capacity hit 4 gigawatts in 2024, flat on the five-year high of 2023 and the highest level since 2019, according to official government figures.
The country plans to continue relying on coal and expand coal power capacity by at least 2035.
India has not taken any decision about expanding its massive coal-fired power generation fleet beyond 2035, the country’s power ministry secretary, Pankaj Agarwal, said this weekend.
“India wants to secure its energy requirements,” Agarwal told Reuters, adding that as on 2035, India aims to have 307 GW of coal power capacity.
It would be “premature to say what we want to do beyond 2035,” the official said.
Reports emerged last week that India’s authorities are considering a significant boost to coal-fired power plant capacity beyond the current 2035 peak coal expansion date and could continue building coal plants until at least 2047.
If the plan to expand the coal power fleet by 2047 goes through, India could have as much as 420 GW of coal power capacity by that year, nearly double the current level, or a massive 87% jump from 2025, Bloomberg reported last week, citing sources with knowledge of the plans.
Coal-fired power generation and capacity installations in India continue to rise and coal remains a key pillar of India’s electricity mix with about 60% share of total power output.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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