The Government of India has a target of deploying 175gigawatts(GW)from renewable energy(RE)by 2022 and 40% of electricity capacity from RE by 2030.Rapid changes in technologycosts and performance could drive deployment of wind and solar capacity beyond these policytargets, and the Government of India has indicated its ambitions for 2030 could be higher thanthe targets. Meanwhile, increased deployment of variable renewable energy (VRE)raises newquestions for power system planning regarding the optimal siting of generation capacity,tradeoffs between generation and transmission infrastructure, and system flexibility needs.This study aims to evaluate least-cost pathways for India’s electric power system over the periodof 2017–2047. It builds on previous operational analysis of India’s planned 2022 power systemand state-of-the-art planning tools developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.1Uniquely, this study considers an expanded planning horizon and a range of scenarios notpreviously analyzed in national planning studies in India. The data collection and model designprocesses undertaken for thestudy provide a framework for recurring planning studies.Generally, thestudy finds anticipated changes in electricity demand and component costs coulddrive a significant shift in India’s future electricity supply and how this system will be operated.Specifically, the study yields the following six findings.
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