Policy analysis of renewable electricity development in India: from a transition modelling perspective

India has started the transformation of its electricity sector towards renewable sources
intertwined with the privatisation of the electricity market since 1990s. The government has targeted
60 GW wind and 100 GW solar installed capacities by 2022 and designed a range of policies to
realise the targets. However, government interventions and target settings may end up with failures.
Transitions towards renewables are multidimensional and involve complexities, nonlinearity and
contingencies, but policy making processes tends to simplify them. Complying with the specific
features of transitions, we apply a ‘transition model’, developed with the system dynamics approach
and underpinned with the transition theories, to investigate the past and the future of the electricity
sector’s transition in India from 1990 to 2030. The simulation results show how the privatisation of the
market in 1990s has led to increase in renewables in the past 25 years. Six future scenarios are also
developed, and the transition pathways are simulated for each scenario. It is found that: 1. coal will be
the dominant source of electricity in every scenario, 2. wind will have the highest share among
renewables and 3. solar will need government support to realise its ambitious 100 GW target.