Plans for huge data center buildouts in India are set to hike clean energy demand in the country, and local renewable energy providers expect demand to outstrip supply.
“Even if just five gigawatts of data center capacity comes to India, which is a conservative estimate, you will need about 30-40 gigawatts of renewable power,” Kuldeep Jain, managing director and founder of CleanMax Enviro Energy Solutions Ltd., a major Indian renewables provider, told Bloomberg in an interview published on Friday.
“It’s a case of demand exceeding supply,” the executive added.
India prepares to introduce a policy for data centers to protect consumers from higher energy bills, junior IT minister Jitin Prasada said earlier this week, following protests in Mumbai over plans by Amazon and Google to build massive billion-dollar data centers in the area.
Renewable energy capacity needed to meet the power demand of data centers in India is set to double from 16.1 gigawatts (GW) this year to as much as 32.4 GW by 2030, according to a report by Anand Rathi Research cited by local outlet the Economic Times.
Hyperscalers want to secure long-term power supply and are increasingly looking to enter 15-20-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) or renewable energy partnerships to purchase 100% of the environmental attributes generated by the projects.
Earlier this year, CleanMax and Meta Platforms announced a renewable energy partnership in India, under which CleanMax will develop and operate 837 MW of solar and wind energy capacity across Rajasthan and Karnataka. Meta will buy 100% of the environmental attributes generated by these projects.
Flexible power procurement can support greener data center growth, BloombergNEF said in its India Transition Factbook 2026 published earlier this week.
India’s data center power demand could rise from 11 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 to 636 TWh by 2050, equivalent to about 11% of India’s total electricity consumption by then. Much of this power demand growth would initially be served by a coal-heavy grid, but data centers “can reduce this exposure by sourcing renewable power through third-party contracts, captive and group-captive projects, onsite solar and power exchanges,” BNEF said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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