Summary
An ICRA report finds that insufficient transmission infrastructure is forcing significant curtailment of renewable energy generation in India, with capacity operating under Temporary General Network Access (T-GNA) facing 30-50% curtailment during the day in the western and northern regions. Renewable energy bidding has collapsed from 40.6 GW in FY25 to 4.7 GW so far in FY26, even as over 150 GW of projects remain under construction, pointing to a widening gap between generation capacity and grid evacuation capacity.
WHY IN NEWS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS
Rating agency ICRA said insufficient transmission lines are forcing many solar power projects into curtailment during daylight hours. Around 37% of renewable capacity affected by curtailment in the northern, western and southern regions operates under short-term T-GNA access, facing 30-50% curtailment.
Peak curtailment in western India reached 8,617 MW as of August 6, 2026. Renewable energy bidding has fallen sharply, from 40.6 GW awarded in FY25 to just 4.7 GW through August 10 this year, even as 150 GW of projects remain under construction.
Standard News
The Bottleneck Isn't Sunlight, It's Wires 40.6
gigawatts of renewable capacity was awarded in bids during 2024-25. This year, through August 10, that number is 4.7 gigawatts. That collapse is the real story in ICRA's report - not the curtailment percentages, which sound technical, but the fact that developers have effectively stopped bidding for new projects at the pace they were a year ago.
Who Actually Feels This The
30-50% daytime curtailment figure sounds like an engineering detail. It isn't. For a solar developer operating under Temporary General Network Access - a short-term, revenue-uncertain arrangement rather than firm transmission capacity - curtailment means selling less power than the plant generates, for months at a stretch, with no compensation for the shortfall.
In western India, where 55% of curtailment-affected capacity runs on T-GNA, peak curtailment hit 8,617 MW on a single day in August. Every megawatt curtailed is a megawatt a lender is still expecting loan repayments against.
That is the actual mechanism connecting an abstract "grid congestion" problem to a very concrete outcome: developers who were bidding aggressively for new capacity in FY25 are pulling back in FY26, because the revenue certainty that makes a renewable energy project financeable has quietly eroded.
The 150 GW of projects still under construction were largely committed before this transmission gap became visible at scale - the falling bid numbers show where developer confidence is now, not where it was two years ago.
Why This Isn't a Generation Problem
India's renewable energy story is usually told through installed capacity and falling tariffs - both genuinely strong. But installed capacity only converts to usable power if the inter-state transmission system can carry it from where it's generated (concentrated solar zones in Rajasthan, Gujarat and the south) to where it's consumed.
Building that transmission infrastructure - corridors, substations, storage - has consistently lagged behind generation capacity additions, because transmission projects have longer gestation periods, involve more land acquisition friction and depend on inter-state coordination that a single generation project doesn't.
ICRA's own framing is telling: the shift toward Firm and Dispatchable Renewable Energy (FDRE) and round-the-clock power in new bids is effectively developers and distribution companies both accepting that raw, intermittent solar capacity without matching transmission and storage is no longer bankable at the pace India needs.
The Exam-Relevant Insight
The standard framing - "India needs more renewable capacity to meet its 2030 targets"
- is only half the argument. The 4.7 GW bidding figure is the canary: it shows that capacity addition without matching transmission and storage financing eventually stalls demand for more capacity itself. Grid infrastructure isn't a supporting detail to the renewable energy transition; past a certain point, it becomes the actual constraint on it.
Quick Facts
Key numbers & takeaways — revise these first
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Around 37 percent of curtailment-affected renewable capacity in the northern, western and southern regions operates under T-GNA.
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Curtailment under T-GNA ranges from 30 to 50 percent during the day.
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Peak curtailment in western India reached 8,617 MW as of August 6, 2026; in northern India it reached 5,573 MW.
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More than 150 GW of renewable projects were under construction as of June 30, 2026.
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Renewable bidding fell from 40.6 GW in FY25 to 14.7 GW in FY26 and stood at 4.7 GW through August 10 this year.
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Renewable energy is projected to supply over 35 percent of power generation by FY 2029-30, up from 22 percent in FY 2024-25.
Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.
Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:
The specific reasons transmission project gestation periods lag generation project timelines and which regions face the worst mismatch
How the shift toward FDRE and round-the-clock bidding is reshaping which developers can access financing at all
What 40 GW to 45 GW of awarded-but-unsigned PPA capacity signals about stalled project pipelines
The full case study connecting western India's 8,617 MW curtailment to specific policy fixes under discussion
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