By Pradeep S Mehta, Varidhi Singh and Sohom Bannerjee
India aims for Viksit Bharat by 2047 but faces risks from imported fossil fuels. A shift to clean energy is crucial for economic stability and global standing. The nation is already making progress in non-fossil power sources and green hydrogen. Accelerating this transition, focusing on storage and firm clean power, is vital for energy sovereignty and achieving developed-country status.
Nations seldom fail for want of ambition; they falter when the foundations of that ambition lie beyond their control. As India advances towards Viksit Bharat 2047, it confronts a strategic paradox, an economy aspiring to great-power stature remains exposed to imported fossil fuels and, as the recent convulsions in West Asia remind us, to external shocks transmitted through global energy markets.
The question, therefore, is no longer whether this vulnerability exists, but how decisively India chooses to circumvent it.
India imports nearly 85 per cent of its crude oil. A US$10 rise in global crude prices can widen the current account deficit by up to 0.4 per cent of GDP while adding 40-60 basis points to inflation. No nation seeking developed-country status can indefinitely anchor prosperity to such external fragility.
Meanwhile, the world is already reordering itself. At COP28, countries acknowledged the imperative to transition away from fossil fuels, signalling a deeper realignment of capital, trade, and technology.
Clean energy investment is now nearing US$1.7 trillion annually, surpassing fossil fuel spending. Carbon-linked trade measures are proliferating. Supply chains increasingly favour jurisdictions able to provide affordable, reliable, and lower-emission power. In this emerging order, delay is not neutrality; it is strategic self-disadvantage.
India, however, enters this transition from a position of promise. According to the Ministry of Power, over 50 per cent of installed power capacity now comes from non-fossil sources, achieved ahead of the 2030 target, though the share in actual generation remains lower.
Solar tariffs have fallen by nearly 85 per cent over the past decade. The National Green Hydrogen Mission further positions India in what may become one of the defining industrial frontiers of this century.
Yet an asymmetry persists. India’s net-zero commitment extends to 2070, while Viksit Bharat is envisioned for 2047. This 23-year divergence is more than chronological; it is structural. A developed India substantially powered by fossil dependence may be larger and wealthier, yet it would remain externally exposed, economically vulnerable, and strategically constrained.
The case for acceleration is not one of ecological romanticism, but of economic statecraft. Climate risk has already become a growth risk. Estimates suggest India could face GDP losses of 3-4 per cent annually by 2030 due to heat stress, erratic monsoons, extreme weather, and infrastructure disruption.
Conversely, the transition itself offers dividends. Renewable energy and allied sectors are projected to generate over three million jobs in India by 2030. India is estimated to require over US$10 trillion in long-term energy investments to meet net-zero ambitions, roughly US$250 billion annually. That is not merely a burden; it is among the largest investible opportunities of the modern era.
Yet the next phase must move beyond the comfortable arithmetic of installed megawatts. Capacity alone does not power a developed economy. Reliability does.
This brings us to the most underappreciated challenge, storage. Solar shines by day; demand often peaks after dusk. Wind remains variable. Industry requires continuity, not intermittent optimism. Without storage depth, renewable abundance can coexist with power insecurity.
India’s stationary energy storage market is expected to witness a breakthrough in 2026, with nearly 5.00 GWh of new capacity, roughly a tenfold jump over earlier years. Pumped hydro storage under construction already stands at 11.62 GW, while battery pipelines continue to expand.
But storage must be understood more broadly than batteries alone. India requires a diversified architecture encompassing lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries, pumped hydro reserves, hydrogen buffers, and thermal or heat storage systems for industrial use. This last dimension is especially critical in a warming nation.
In Rajasthan and Gujarat, battery systems may increasingly need to operate in ambient temperatures approaching 50°C, making cooling systems and thermal management strategic necessities rather than technical footnotes. The next frontier is not generation alone, but dispatchability.
Equally indispensable is firm clean baseload power. Here, nuclear energy merits sober reconsideration. Renewables provide breadth; nuclear provides continuity. On 6th April 2026, India’s 500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam achieved criticality, a milestone of considerable strategic significance.
Fast breeder technology can improve fuel efficiency, support India’s thorium pathway, reduce uranium dependence, and provide reliable low-carbon power for manufacturing, electrified transport, data centres, and AI infrastructure.
There is, moreover, a security lesson the present age compels us to absorb. Energy systems can no longer be regarded as passive utilities; they are strategic infrastructure.
Refineries, ports, LNG terminals, transmission lines, solar parks, battery plants, data centres, and undersea cables all exist within an era of diffuse insecurity. Conflict may now arrive through drones, cyber sabotage, maritime disruption, or attacks on logistics nodes. India’s transition must therefore be designed with redundancy, physical protection, cyber resilience, and diversified supply chains at its core.
There is also a diplomatic lesson. India’s negotiating caution on fossil fuels, whether the “phase down” formulation at COP26 Glasgow or calibrated positioning at COP28 Dubai, reflected legitimate developmental priorities. Yet markets move faster than communiqués. Competitiveness will increasingly be determined less by negotiated language than by domestic readiness.
What then must be done?
Treat energy transformation not as sectoral reform but as central economic policy. Accelerate storage deployment, modernise grids, scale clean manufacturing, pursue nuclear options with seriousness and safeguards, reduce oil intensity, secure critical infrastructure, and mobilise catalytic finance. Above all, institutionalise speed.
That, in its fullest sense, is the meaning of Viksit Bharat. Energy sovereignty is not an incidental dividend of national success, but one of its indispensable preconditions. If Viksit Bharat is the destination, a fossil-free economy is not merely the path, it is the price of arrival.
The authors work for CUTS International, a 40+ year old global public policy research and advocacy group.
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