Transmission Plan maps the grid for 900 GW non-fossil power

India's first Bharat Electricity Summit launches two strategic blueprints for a clean-energy grid by 2035-36.

What happened

• The Ministry of Power inaugurated the maiden edition of the Bharat Electricity Summit 2026 at Yashobhoomi (the India International Convention & Expo Centre, Dwarka), New Delhi.
• Two official strategic documents were released at the summit: the National Resource Adequacy Plan and the Transmission Plan for Integration of over 900 GW Non-Fossil Fuel Capacity by 2035-36.
• The Transmission Plan sets out the physical grid build-out needed to carry that clean power: about 1,37,500 circuit kilometres (ckm) of new transmission lines and 8,27,600 MVA of new substation transformation capacity.
• The estimated investment for this grid expansion is roughly Rs 7.93 lakh crore.
• The government noted that India has met its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target of 50% of installed electric capacity from non-fossil sources nearly five years ahead of its 2030 deadline.
• Headline progress markers were cited: solar capacity rose from 2.8 GW to over 143 GW, the transmission network crossed 5 lakh ckm, and the system met an all-time peak demand of 250 GW in 2024-25, with readiness being built for 270 GW and beyond.
• The SHANTI Act 2025 and the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana were cited as part of the policy backdrop to this clean-power and grid push.

Background & context

The news is best read as the meeting point of two distinct things: a new convening platform and a pair of long-horizon planning documents. The Bharat Electricity Summit is, in this maiden edition, the Power Ministry's flagship platform for the electricity sector — a venue to gather regulators, generators, transmission utilities, investors and equipment makers around the country's power-sector roadmap. It is held at Yashobhoomi, the large convention complex in Dwarka that the Centre uses for marquee national and international events. The summit itself is the occasion; the substance for the aspirant is the two plans unveiled at it.

The first plan, the National Resource Adequacy Plan, belongs to the question of how much capacity of each kind the country must build and keep available so that supply reliably meets demand at every hour, including the evening peak when solar output fades. Resource adequacy planning is the discipline of ensuring there is always enough firm, dispatchable capacity — plus storage and flexible resources — behind a rising and increasingly variable demand curve. As India adds large volumes of solar and wind, which generate only when the sun shines or the wind blows, the adequacy question shifts from simply building more megawatts to building the right mix of generation, storage and balancing capacity. The plan is the official answer to that mix problem over the coming decade.

The second plan, the Transmission Plan for Integration of over 900 GW Non-Fossil Fuel Capacity by 2035-36, addresses the other half of the problem — evacuation and wheeling. Renewable energy is geographically concentrated: solar in the high-irradiation deserts and plateaus of the west and south, wind along specific coastal and inland corridors, and increasingly large hybrid and offshore zones. The load centres that consume the power — cities, industry, agriculture — sit elsewhere. A clean-energy target is meaningless unless the grid can physically move that power from where it is generated to where it is used, across States and regions, without congestion or curtailment. The Transmission Plan is the engineering and investment blueprint for that grid: the lines, substations and inter-regional links required to absorb more than 900 GW of non-fossil capacity by the financial year 2035-36.

This planning lineage is well established in India. The Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the statutory technical body under the Ministry of Power, has long prepared National Electricity Plans covering generation and transmission, and earlier transmission roadmaps mapped the corridors needed for renewable-rich zones. The 900 GW Transmission Plan extends that tradition to a far larger, decarbonised target horizon, and pairs it with a formal resource-adequacy exercise so that energy (kilowatt-hours over the year), capacity (megawatts available at peak) and network (the wires that connect them) are planned together rather than in isolation.

The progress figures cited give the plans their starting line. India's solar capacity climbing from 2.8 GW to over 143 GW marks one of the fastest renewable build-outs anywhere, anchored by large solar parks, rooftop programmes and competitive auctions. The transmission network crossing 5 lakh ckm shows the wires have grown alongside generation, and meeting a 250 GW peak demand in 2024-25 quantifies how large and fast-growing the load has become. The standout claim is on the climate commitment: under the Paris Agreement, India's NDC pledged to reach 50% of cumulative installed electric power capacity from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2030, and the government states this target was achieved roughly five years early. The new plans are framed as the bridge from that milestone to the next, much larger, clean-capacity ambition.

For Prelims

• The event: Bharat Electricity Summit 2026 — its maiden (first) edition, inaugurated at Yashobhoomi, New Delhi, by the Ministry of Power.
• Two documents released: (1) the National Resource Adequacy Plan; (2) the Transmission Plan for Integration of over 900 GW Non-Fossil Fuel Capacity by 2035-36.
• Target horizon: integrate over 900 GW of non-fossil-fuel capacity by the financial year 2035-36.
• Transmission build-out: about 1,37,500 ckm of new lines and 8,27,600 MVA of new substation capacity.
• Investment: roughly Rs 7.93 lakh crore.
• NDC milestone: India met its NDC target of 50% non-fossil installed electric capacity nearly five years before the 2030 deadline.
• Solar growth: from 2.8 GW to over 143 GW.
• Network & demand: transmission lines crossed 5 lakh ckm; peak demand met was 250 GW (2024-25), with preparedness for 270 GW and beyond.
• Policy backdrop cited: the SHANTI Act 2025 and the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana (the rooftop-solar scheme for free electricity to households).
• Units to keep straight: GW = generation/demand capacity; ckm (circuit km) = length of transmission line; MVA = transformation capacity of substations. These are three different quantities measuring three different things — generation, wires and switching.
• "Non-fossil" set: non-fossil capacity covers solar, wind, hydro (large & small), nuclear, biomass and other renewables — it is measured as a share of installed capacity (MW/GW), not as a share of actual electricity generated.

What it is NOT. The 900 GW figure is a capacity target (installed gigawatts), not an electricity-generation or consumption figure. The "50% non-fossil" NDC milestone is about the share of installed capacity, not the share of electricity actually generated — because solar and wind run at lower utilisation, their share of generated units is smaller than their share of installed capacity, a distinction examiners love to test. The Transmission Plan is not a generation plan: it sizes the wires and substations needed to carry clean power, not the power plants themselves — that is the job of the separate Resource Adequacy Plan. The Bharat Electricity Summit is not itself a scheme or a law; it is the platform at which the plans were released. And the NDC is India's pledge under the Paris Agreement, not a domestic statute — it should not be confused with the SHANTI Act or any electricity legislation.

Why it matters

The problem these plans address is one of sequencing. India has shown it can add renewable generation fast — solar going from under 3 GW to over 143 GW is the proof — and it has already crossed the symbolic halfway mark on non-fossil capacity ahead of schedule. But the next leg of decarbonisation runs into a harder constraint than building solar panels: the grid. Renewable energy is variable and remote. Without enough transmission lines and substations, clean power gets stranded — generated but not deliverable — forcing curtailment, wasting investment and undermining the case for further build-out. By committing roughly Rs 7.93 lakh crore to 1,37,500 ckm of lines and 8,27,600 MVA of substations, the Transmission Plan tries to ensure the wires are ready before, not after, the 900 GW of generation arrives.

The pairing with the National Resource Adequacy Plan is what makes this more than a wish-list. As coal's share falls and variable renewables rise, the system's biggest risk shifts to the evening peak, when demand stays high but solar output collapses. Adequacy planning forces the question of how that peak is met — through storage (batteries and pumped hydro), flexible hydro and gas, demand management, and inter-regional transfers that move surplus power from a region where the wind is blowing to one where it is not. Planning generation mix, network and storage together is the only way to keep supply reliable while decarbonising; planning them separately is how blackouts and stranded assets happen. The 250 GW peak met in 2024-25 and readiness for 270 GW show the demand the system must keep ahead of.

There is a larger climate and energy-security story too. India's early achievement of its 50% non-fossil NDC is a credible signal in international climate negotiations, where developing economies are often doubted on delivery. Domestically, every gigawatt of indigenous solar, wind, hydro and nuclear capacity reduces dependence on imported fossil fuels and the exposure to global price shocks that comes with them. A clean, well-connected grid is therefore simultaneously a climate instrument, an energy-security instrument and an industrial-policy instrument, since the transmission and storage build-out itself creates demand for domestic manufacturing, engineering and skilled employment.

For Mains