India needed to curtail 2.3 terawatt hours (TWh) of solar era between late Might and December 2025, a improvement that indicates the power system’s requirements for a high-renewables future.
A report by Ember additionally reveals that flexibility enchancment should preserve tempo with solar power capability progress contemplating that the whole recorded curtailment is equal to roughly 18 per cent of the typical month-to-month solar era of about 13 TWh.
Whereas 2025 marked a surge in solar capability additions in India, it additionally repeatedly noticed curtailment of solar power as an emergency measure to make sure grid stability, the power assume tank’s report identified.
It reveals that India needed to curtail 2.3 terawatt hours (TWh) of solar era between late Might, when reporting began and December 2025, for which between ₹575 and ₹690 crore (round $63-76 million) needed to be paid in compensation via emergency Tertiary Reserve Ancillary Service (TRAS) mechanisms, it added.
An enormous 38 gigawatt (GW) solar power capability was added in 2025. But, curtailment of RE emerged as a key theme of the 12 months, pushed by transmission constraints and grid safety considerations via emergency measures, Ember famous.
In some ways, such curtailment defeats the very objective of constructing this capability. Ruchita Shah, Vitality Analyst at Ember, defined that “Whereas grid security-related curtailment in 2025 will not be a main concern in isolation, because it was largely triggered by lower-than-expected demand, it served as a real-world stress take a look at for a high-solar future. It highlighted a elementary actuality: clear power can’t scale effectively with out flexibility,” she added.
Sharing a related view, Sanjeev Aggarwal, Chairman of Hexa Local weather, identified that the basis trigger is a velocity mismatch—era grows at 24 per cent whereas transmission lags at 6 per cent.
“Distributed era merely can’t match the dimensions wanted for heavy business. To repair this, we don’t want new targets; we want the infrastructure of execution that’s quicker corridors and storage to lastly join our useful resource hubs to our industrial engines. With out fixing this, India’s power transition dangers fragmenting into inefficient regional silos,” he emphasised.
The curtailment occurred, below continuously occurring operational situations, because the Nationwide Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC) couldn’t flip down different era sources far sufficient to accommodate noon solar power.
These situations occurred, for instance, when demand was decrease than forecast, a frequent incidence in 2025 attributable to exceptionally gentle temperatures, the assume tank identified.
Demand fell in October 2025, with the noon fall twice that within the night. In these circumstances, even after ramping down the coal fleet to its minimal technical limits, the system operator needed to curtail solar era to make sure the grid remained steady.
Ember argued that 2025 is an indicator of the power system’s requirements for a high-renewables future, and reveals that Indian flexibility enchancment should preserve tempo with solar capability progress.
It identifies that India is already taking steps on this route, and recommends a three-level technique, carried out within the close to to mid time period to extend flexibility.
First, guaranteeing that different producing property are able to turning up or down when there may be excessive renewable era. Second, constructing extra storage property to retailer extra renewable power for instances of upper demand. Lastly, shifting non-critical demand to durations of excessive renewable availability as one other key step to organize for the future.
Revealed on January 31, 2026
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