Africa is witnessing a significant rise in solar energy adoption, offering hope for a continent long challenged by limited access to electricity. Recent data from the Kigali-based Africa Solar Industry […]

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In Short : Over the past decade, India has shifted from chronic power shortages to being largely power-sufficient by massively expanding electricity generation capacity and grid infrastructure. Installed capacity has nearly doubled since 2014, narrowing the gap between demand and supply to almost zero and allowing India to meet peak demand with no shortfall. This transition supports economic growth, universal electrification, and energy security.

In Detail : There is adequate availability of power in the country. Present installed generation capacity of the country is 513.730 GW. Government of India has addressed the critical issue of power deficiency by adding 289.607 GW of fresh generation capacity since April, 2014 transforming the country from power deficit to power sufficient.

The State/ UT-wise details of Power Supply Position, including Maharashtra, for the last three years and the current FY i.e. 2025-26 (upto December, 2025) are attached below. These details indicate that Energy Supplied has been commensurate to the Energy Requirement with only a marginal gap which is generally on account of constraints in the State transmission/distribution network. Hence there is no impact of shortage on the economy and industrial growth.

Further, Electricity being a concurrent subject, the supply and distribution of electricity to the various categories of consumers/areas/districts in a State/UT is within the purview of the respective State Government/Power Utility. The Central Government supplements the efforts of the State Governments by establishing power plants in Central Sector through Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs) and allocating power from them to the various States / UTs.

The Government have taken the following steps to meet the increasing demand of electricity in the country:

1. Generation Planning:

• As per National Electricity Plan (NEP), installed generation capacity in 2031-32 is likely to be 874 GW. With a view to ensure generation capacity remains ahead of projected peak demand, all the States, in consultation with CEA, have prepared their “Resource Adequacy Plans (RAPs)”, which are dynamic 10 year rolling plans and includes power generation as well as power procurement planning.
• All the States were advised to initiate process for creating/ contracting generation capacities; from all generation sources, as per their Resource Adequacy Plans.
• In order to augment the power generation capacity, the Government of India has initiated following capacity addition programme:

(A) The projected thermal (coal and lignite) capacity requirement by the year 2034–35 is estimated at approximately 3,07,000 MW as against the 2,11,855 MW installed capacity as on 31.03.2023. To meet this requirement, Ministry of Power has envisaged to set up an additional minimum 97,000 MW coal and lignite based thermal capacity.To meet this requirement, several initiatives have already been undertaken. Thermal capacities of around 17,360 MW have already been commissioned since April 2023 till 20.01.2026. In addition, 39,545 MW of thermal capacity (including 4,845 MW of stressed thermal power projects) is currently under construction. The contracts of 22,920 MW have been awarded and is due for construction. Further, 24,020 MW of coal and lignite-based candidate capacity has been identified which is at various stages of planning in the country.

(B)12,973.5 MW of Hydro Electric Projects are under construction. Further, 4,274 MW of Hydro Electric Projects are under various stage of planning and targeted to be completed by 2031-32.

(C) 6,600 MW of Nuclear Capacity is under construction and targeted to be completed by 2029-30. 7,000 MW of Nuclear Capacity is under various stages of planning and approval.

(D) 1,57,800 MW Renewable Capacity including 67,280 MW of Solar, 6,500 MW of Wind and 60,040 MW Hybrid power is under construction while 48,720 MW of Renewable Capacity including 35,440 MW of Solar and 11,480 MW Hybrid Power is at various stages of planning and targeted to be completed by 2029-30.

(E) In energy storage systems, 11,620 MW/69,720 MWh Pumped Storage Projects (PSPs) are under construction. Further, a total of 6,580 MW/39,480 MWh capacity of Pumped Storage Projects (PSPs) are concurred and yet to be taken up for construction. Currently, 9,653.94 MW/ 26,729.32 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) capacity are under construction and 19,797.65 MW/ 61,013.40 MWh BESS capacity are under tendering stage

2. Transmission Planning: Inter and Intra-State Transmission System has been planned and implementation of the same is taken up in matching time frame of generation capacity addition. As per the National Electricity Plan, about 1,91,474 ckm of transmission lines and 1,274 GVA of transformation capacity is planned to be added (at 220 kV and above voltage level) during the ten year period from 2022-23 to 2031-32.

3. Promotion of Renewable Energy Generation:

• Inter State Transmission System (ISTS) charges have been waived for inter-state sale of solar and wind power for projects to be commissioned by 30th June 2025, for Green Hydrogen Projects till December 2030 and for offshore wind projects till December 2032.
• Standard Bidding Guidelines for tariff based competitive bidding process for procurement of Power from Grid Connected Solar, Wind, Wind-Solar Hybrid and Firm &Dispatchable RE (FDRE) projects have been issued.
• Renewable Energy Implementing Agencies (REIAs) are regularly inviting bids for procurement of RE power.
• Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has been permitted up to 100 percent under the automatic route.
• To augment transmission infrastructure needed for steep RE trajectory, transmission plan has been prepared till 2032.
• Laying of new intrastate transmission lines and creating new sub-station capacity has been funded under the Green Energy Corridor Scheme for evacuation of renewable power.
• Scheme for setting up of Solar Parks and Ultra Mega Solar Power projects is being implemented to provide land and transmission to RE developers for installation of RE projects at large scale
• Schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Surakshaevam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM), PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, National Programme on High Efficiency Solar Dharti Aabha Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DA JGUA), National Green Hydrogen Mission, Viability Gap Funding (VGF) Scheme for Offshore Wind Energy Projects have been launched
• To encourage RE consumption, Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) followed by Renewable Consumption Obligation (RCO) trajectory has been notified till 2029-30. The RCO which is applicable to all designated consumers under the Energy Conservation Act, 2001 will attract penalties on non-compliance.
• “Strategy for Establishment of Offshore Wind Energy Projects” has been issued.
• Green Term Ahead Market (GTAM) has been launched to facilitate sale of Renewable Energy Power through exchanges.
• Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme has been launched to achieve the objective of localisation of supply chain for solar PV Modules.

The State-wise detail of Power Supply Position in the country in terms of Energy for the year 2022-23 and 2023-24.

The State-wise detail of actual Power Supply Position in the country in terms of Energy for the years 2024-25 and the current year 2025-26 (uptoDecember, 2025).

This Information was given by The Minister of State in the Ministry of Power, Shri Shripad Naik, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

A prototyping problem is emerging in today’s efforts to electrify everything. What works as a lab-bench mockup breaks in reality. Harnessing and safely storing energy at grid scale and in cars, trucks, and planes is a very hard problem that simplified models sometimes can’t touch.

“In electrification, at its core, you have this combination of electromagnetic effects, heat transfer, and structural mechanics in a complicated interplay,” says Bjorn Sjodin, senior vice president of product management at the Stockholm-based software company COMSOL.

COMSOL is an engineering R&D software company that seeks to simulate not just a single phenomenon—for instance, the electromagnetic behavior of a circuit—but rather all the pertinent physics that needs to be simulated for developing new technologies in real-world operating conditions.

Engineers and developers gathered in Burlington, Mass. on 8 to 10 October for COMSOL’s annual Boston conference, where they discussed engineering simulations via multiple simultaneous physics packages. And multiphysics modeling, as the emerging field is called, has emerged as a component of electrification R&D that is becoming more than just nice to have.

“Sometimes, I think some people still see simulation as a fancy R&D thing,” says Niloofar Kamyab, a chemical engineer and applications manager at COMSOL. “Because they see it as a replacement for experiments. But no, experiments still need to be done, though experiments can be done in a more optimized and effective way.”

Can Multiphysics Scale Electrification?

Multiphysics, Kamyab says, can sometimes be only half the game.

“I think when it comes to batteries, there is another attraction when it comes to simulation,” she says. “It’s multiscale—how batteries can be studied across different scales. You can get in-depth analysis that, if not very hard, I would say is impossible to do experimentally.”

In part, this is because batteries reveal complicated behaviors (and runaway reactions) at the cell level but also in unpredictable new ways at the battery-pack level as well.

“Most of the people who do simulations of battery packs—thermal management is one of their primary concerns,” Kamyab says. “You do this simulation so you know how to avoid it. You recreate a cell that is malfunctioning.” She adds that multiphysics simulation of thermal runaway enables battery engineers to safely test how each design behaves in even the most extreme conditions—in order to stop any battery problems or fires before they could happen.

Wireless charging systems are another area of electrification, with their own thermal challenges. “At higher power levels, localized heating of the coil changes its conductivity,” says Nirmal Paudel, a lead engineer at Veryst Engineering, a consulting firm based in Needham, Mass. And that, he notes, in turn can change the entire circuit as well as the design and performance of all the elements that surround it.

Electric motors and power converters require similar simulation savvy. According to electrical engineer and COMSOL senior application engineer Vignesh Gurusamy, older ways of developing these age-old electrical workhorse technologies are proving less useful today. “The recent surge in electrification across diverse applications demands a more holistic approach as it enables the development of new optimal designs,” Gurusamy says.

And freight transportation: “For trucks, people are investigating, Should we use batteries? Should we use fuel cells?” Sjodin says. “Fuel cells are very multiphysics friendly—fluid flow, heat transfer, chemical reactions, and electrochemical reactions.”

Lastly, there’s the electric grid itself. “The grid is designed for a continuous supply of power,” Sjodin says. “So when you have power sources [like wind and solar] shutting off and on all the time, you have completely new problems.”

Multiphysics in Battery and Electric-Motor Design

Taking such an all-in approach to engineering simulations can yield unanticipated upsides as well, says Kamyab. Berlin-based automotive engineering company IAV, for example, is developing power-train systems that integrate multiple battery formats and chemistries in a single pack. “Sodium ion cannot give you the energy that lithium ion can give,” Kamyab says. “So they came up with a blend of chemistries, to get the benefits of each, and then designed a thermal management that matches all the chemistries.”

Jakob Hilgert, who works as a technical consultant at IAV, recently contributed to a COMSOL industry case study. In it, Hilgert described the design of a dual-chemistry battery pack that combines sodium-ion cells with a more costly lithium solid-state battery.

Hilgert says that using multiphysics simulation enabled the IAV team to play the two chemistries’ different properties off of each other. “If we have some cells that can operate at high temperatures and some cells that can operate at low temperatures, it is beneficial to take the exhaust heat of the higher-running cells to heat up the lower-running cells, and vice versa,” Hilgert said. “That’s why we came up with a cooling system that shifts the energy from cells that want to be in a cooler state to cells that want to be in a hotter state.”

According to Sjodin, IAV is part of a larger trend in a range of industries that are impacted by the electrification of everything. “Algorithmic improvements and hardware improvements multiply together,” he says. “That’s the future of multiphysics simulation. It will allow you to simulate larger and larger, more realistic systems.”

According to COMSOL’s Gurusamy, GPU accelerators and surrogate models allow for bigger jumps in electric-motor capabilities and efficiencies. Even seemingly simple components like the windings of copper wire in a motor core (called stators) provide parameters that multiphysics can optimize.

“A primary frontier in electric-motor development is pushing power density and efficiency to new heights, with thermal management emerging as a key challenge,” Gurusamy says. “Multiphysics models that couple electromagnetic and thermal simulations…incorporate temperature-dependent behavior in stator windings and magnetic materials.”

Simulation is also changing the wireless charging world, Paudel says. “Traditional design cycles tweak coil geometry,” he says. “Today, integrated multiphysics platforms enable exploration of new charging architectures,” including flexible charging textiles and smart surfaces that adapt in real time.

And batteries, according to Kamyab, are continuing a push toward higher power densities and lower prices. Which is changing not just the industries where batteries are already used, like consumer electronics and EVs. Higher-capacity batteries are also driving new industries like electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs).

“The reason that many ideas that we had 30 years ago are becoming a reality is now we have the batteries to power them,” Kamyab says. “That was the bottleneck for many years.... And as we continue to push battery technology forward, who knows what new technologies and applications we’re making possible next.”

In Short : Two remote tribal villages in Odisha have achieved full electrification through solar power, marking a significant step toward inclusive and sustainable energy access. The initiative has brought reliable electricity to previously underserved communities, improving quality of life, supporting livelihoods, and demonstrating the transformative potential of decentralized renewable energy solutions in remote regions.

In Detail : Two remote tribal villages in Odisha have been fully electrified using solar power, representing a major milestone in expanding clean and reliable energy access to some of the most geographically isolated communities. The achievement highlights the role of decentralized renewable energy in bridging longstanding infrastructure gaps.

For years, these villages faced limited or no access to grid electricity due to challenging terrain and remoteness. Solar-based electrification has provided a practical and sustainable alternative, overcoming logistical barriers that made conventional power supply difficult.

The solar systems installed include rooftop panels, battery storage, and distribution infrastructure designed to ensure uninterrupted power supply. This setup enables households to access electricity for lighting, basic appliances, and essential services throughout the day and night.

Reliable electricity has brought tangible improvements to daily life in the villages. Extended lighting hours have enhanced safety and convenience, while access to power has supported education by enabling children to study after sunset.

Healthcare and community services have also benefited from solar electrification. Power availability supports the operation of basic medical equipment, cold storage for medicines, and improved functioning of community centers and public facilities.

The initiative has opened up new livelihood opportunities by enabling small enterprises and income-generating activities. Access to electricity allows villagers to adopt tools and technologies that improve productivity and economic resilience.

Solar power has also reduced dependence on traditional fuels such as kerosene and diesel, leading to lower household expenses and improved indoor air quality. The shift contributes to both environmental sustainability and better health outcomes.

The project reflects a broader push toward inclusive energy access that leaves no community behind. By prioritizing remote and tribal regions, such initiatives help ensure that the benefits of clean energy reach all sections of society.

The successful solar electrification of these villages demonstrates the potential of renewable energy to drive social transformation. It serves as a model for scaling similar solutions across other remote regions, advancing both development and sustainability goals.