India’s BRICS Chairship offers an opportunity to advance practical pathways rooted in resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability
Shripad Naik
At a time of growing global uncertainty, rising energy demand, and intensifying climate challenges, the imperative before the international community is to build energy systems that are cleaner, more secure, affordable, and reliable, while remaining aligned with the development needs and economic aspirations of developing economies.
Clean energy is increasingly becoming integral to energy security, industrial growth, and long-term development. It can reduce vulnerability to volatile fuel markets, expand energy access, create jobs, strengthen domestic industries, and enhance national resilience. Yet the pathways to clean energy cannot be uniform. They must reflect national circumstances, resource endowments, and developmental priorities.
This is where cooperation among developing economies assumes importance. Greater cooperation among BRICS members can help accelerate clean energy deployment while advancing shared goals of energy security, sustainability, and inclusive growth.
India’s own experience shows that clean energy must begin with people.
Over the past decade, under the PM Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojna (SAUBHAGYA), electricity connections were provided to nearly 28.6 million households, advancing universal electrification and improving living standards across rural and underserved regions. Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), more than 105 millioni LPG connections have been released to women, helping promote cleaner cooking, improve household health, and reduce drudgery.
These initiatives underline an important principle: clean energy adoption cannot be measured only in megawatts installed or capacities added, but also in opportunities created, livelihoods strengthened, and quality of life improved.
This people-first approach must be matched by scale and supporting infrastructure. Renewable energy has become central to India’s clean energy story, but its success depends on the systems that support it. Solar and wind can be deployed quickly, yet their full potential will be realized only when transmission, distribution, storage and grid management move together.
India has made significant progress in strengthening the systems that support clean energy expansion. Transmission infrastructure has expanded steadily, alongside growing investments in energy storage and grid flexibility. Distribution reforms and the adoption of advanced grid technologies are also helping create a more responsive and reliable power system capable of integrating rising shares of renewable energy.
India’s non-fossil fuel-based capacity has now surpassed 288 GW. Beyond large utility-scale projects, Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) systems are increasingly expanding clean energy access across rural and underserved regions through rooftop solar, solar pumps, mini-grids, and micro-grids. These systems are supporting irrigation, cold storage, schools, healthcare centres, and local enterprises, while strengthening rural livelihoods and local economic resilience.
India’s PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana reflects this vision at scale. Around 4 million households have already benefitted from the programme, enabling consumers to become contributors to a more decentralised and participatory energy system.
Finance, however, will remain one of the most critical enablers of clean energy expansion. Many developing economies possess immense renewable-energy potential, but translating this potential into scalable and bankable projects requires access to affordable, long-term capital.
Investments in renewable energy, transmission infrastructure, grid modernization, storage systems, and energy-efficient technologies will be essential in the years ahead. Institutions such as the New Development Bank can play an important role in supporting developing countries through financing, technology partnerships, and capacity building.
Equally important is the need to build resilient and diversified supply chains for clean-energy technologies. Strengthening cooperation across manufacturing, technology, innovation, and supply chains will be essential for ensuring secure, affordable, and reliable energy systems for developing economies.
As India advances its BRICS Chairship, there is an opportunity to strengthen a forward-looking framework for cooperation that supports affordability, scale, reliability, technology access, resilient supply chains, and sustainable growth.
The challenge is not merely to add clean energy capacity, but to build energy systems that are inclusive, affordable, reliable, and capable of sustaining long-term economic growth and human development.
(The author is the Minister of State for Power)
