Author: Arunendra Kumar Tiwari | Alekhya Datta
When the COP31 Presidency set a goal of raising electricity to 35% of the world’s final energy demand by 2035, it chose a target that sounds abstract but touches everyday life. It’s about how we cook, cool our homes, move goods, run factories and power the data centres behind our phones. For India, the question isn’t whether to electrify. This is already happening. The question is whether the electricity that power it will be clean and reliable at all hour of the day.
India is on a better footing than many believe. According to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s India Energy Scenario 2024-25, electricity made up about 23% of India’s final energy consumption last year. That figure, however, leaves out the firewood, crop residue and dung that still fuel millions of kitchens and small enterprises. Counting these, as international comparisons do, the share falls to roughly 19%. The share has also risen only slowly, from about 22% five years ago. Reaching 35% by 2035 means moving several times faster than India has so far.
The harder part lies in where electrification has yet to reach. Industry accounts for half of India’s final energy use, yet electricity meets only about 19% of its needs, while coal still meets close to 58%. Electrifying industrial heat and processes will need large volumes of power that is steady, clean and affordable at every hour. At the same time, total energy demand is growing every year, so the electricity system must expand twice over: once for growth and again for switching fuels. The real challenge isn’t just the number of units we generate. It’s when we need them.
The grid’s new clock
Solar has transformed India’s power system, and it will keep doing the heavy lifting. On 29 July 2025, renewables met a record 51.5% of the country’s electricity demand. But solar output follows the sun, while electrified demand increasingly doesn’t. Buildings already use a third of India’s electricity, and household consumption nearly doubled in a decade, from 217 billion units in 2014-15 to about 409 billion units in 2024-25, driven largely by fans and air conditioners that run late into hot nights. Electric vehicles, now about 8% of new registrations, mostly charge in the evening. Data centres and steel furnaces run around the clock.
The grid is already feeling this. Analysis shows that the midday drop in net load, after subtracting solar, has grown from about 25 GW in 2023 to 64 GW in 2026. Every gigawatt that solar supplies at noon has to be replaced by something else after sunset. Today that something else is mostly coal. Batteries are part of the answer, and India is building them quickly, but from a low base. By mid-2026, India had installed 9.3 GWh of battery storage, against a national requirement of about 35 GWh by 2026-27 in the Central Electricity Authority’s own plan. Batteries are excellent at shifting solar power by a few hours. They are far less suited to carrying an industrial economy through long monsoon spells, cloudy weeks or winter evenings. For that, India needs firm, low-carbon power that runs regardless of the weather.
Where nuclear stands, honestly
This is where nuclear energy enters, and where honesty matters. Nuclear supplied just 3% of the electricity India generated. Even with the projects now under construction, nuclear capacity to reach about 22.4 GW by 2034. That is significant progress, but nuclear will not be what carries India to 35% electrification by 2035. Solar, wind, storage and efficiency will do most of that work. Nuclear will, however, decide whether that electrification stays clean after 2035. Beyond the next decade, India’s firm-power options are limited. Large-scale long-duration storage is still maturing. Without a clean alternative, the default is more coal, which means electrifying our economy only to burn more coal at night. Nuclear is the one firm, zero-carbon source India can build at scale with domestic technology and fuel-cycle expertise. The government has set a target of 100 GW by 2047, and the SHANTI Act of 2025 now allows private companies to build, own, operate and decommission nuclear plants under central licensing and regulatory approval. Industry has responded: NTPC plans around 30 GW across at least 14 states, and the Adani Group has announced plans for up to 10 GW by 2035. Reactors take close to a decade to plan and build. The plants that will keep India’s electrified economy clean in the 2040s must be decided in the next five years. The 2035 race and the post-2035 race are therefore being run at the same time.
Three reforms that matter now:
First, pay for reliability, not just energy. India’s power markets largely reward the cheapest unit at any moment. That works for adding solar, but it undervalues sources that deliver power at 9 pm in August. Capacity payments, two-part tariffs and procurement designed around round-the-clock supply would let nuclear compete on what it actually provides: firmness.
Second, match small reactors to the hardest demand. Industrial clusters for steel, cement, fertilisers and chemicals, and the new wave of data centres, need large, steady, clean power. Bharat Small Reactors as captive or cluster-level supply would link nuclear directly to the demand that is hardest to electrify, while easing pressure on transmission. Third, bring down the cost of capital. Most of nuclear’s cost is financing, not fuel. Long-tenor concessional debt, sovereign green bonds and clear inclusion of nuclear in India’s green finance taxonomy could make a large difference to tariffs. This is exactly where the COP31 Presidency’s focus on finance mobilisation and technology transfer can help. Underpinning all three is integrated planning.
Nuclear, renewables, storage and transmission should be sized together, based on hourly demand rather than annual totals. India’s experience carries a lesson for every fast-growing economy that signs up to “35 by 35”. An electrification target is only half a climate strategy. The other half is a plan for firm, clean power, or electrification risks locking in fossil fuels after dark. India can reach 35% electrification by 2035 on the strength of the sun. Keeping that electricity clean through the night, and through the decades that follow, will depend on choices we make now.
Nuclear power won’t win the 2035 race, but it may well decide the one after it.
Dr Arunendra Kumar Tiwari is, Fellow, TERI and Alekhya Datta, Director, TERI; Views presented are personal.