What the Adani allegations highlight about India's clean energy push | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Wednesday
June 11, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2025
What the Adani allegations highlight about India's clean energy push

South Asia

Reuters
28 November, 2024, 10:45 am
Last modified: 28 November, 2024, 10:58 am

Related News

  • Curfew and internet ban imposed in Manipur after arrests spark fresh unrest
  • Explosions, fires rock Singapore-flagged cargo ship off India's Kerala coast
  • India's $80 billion coal-power boom is running short of water
  • Indian man held for trafficking three women from Bangladesh
  • 'Didn’t think I'd make it back': Assam man returns home after being pushed into Bangladesh

What the Adani allegations highlight about India's clean energy push

While India's central government wants to shift away from polluting coal-fired generation towards solar and wind, officials say state government-owned power distribution companies responsible for keeping the lights on have dragged their heels over striking renewable purchase deals

Reuters
28 November, 2024, 10:45 am
Last modified: 28 November, 2024, 10:58 am
Workers install solar panels at the Khavda Renewable Energy Park of Adani Green Energy Ltd (AGEL) in Khavda, India, April 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
Workers install solar panels at the Khavda Renewable Energy Park of Adani Green Energy Ltd (AGEL) in Khavda, India, April 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo

Bribery allegations against Adani Group founder Gautam Adani have highlighted the growing problem India's renewable energy developers face in finding buyers for the power they generate.

While India's central government wants to shift away from polluting coal-fired generation towards solar and wind, officials say state government-owned power distribution companies responsible for keeping the lights on have dragged their heels over striking renewable purchase deals.

US authorities allege that Indian billionaire Adani conspired to devise a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian state government officials to secure solar power supply deals, after one of his companies was unable to secure buyers for a $6 billion project for several years.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

The Adani Group has denied the charges.

The conglomerate is not alone in facing increasingly long delays in signing up buyers for the renewable electricity capacity which is now being developed in coal-dependent India - the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Coal accounted for 75% of India's power generation during the year to the end of March, with renewables such as solar and wind, but not including hydro-electricity, making up about 12%.

India is still more than 10% short of its much-publicised pledge to add 175 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power by 2022.

That has led the federal government to ramp up bidding for renewable projects to meet an ambitious 2030 target of increasing its non-fossil fuel capacity to 500 gigawatts (GW).

In the five years to March 2028 it plans to tender for more than four-times the capacity of renewable energy projects it commissioned in the preceding five.

To push states to help meet India's overall goal, New Delhi in 2022 introduced so-called renewable purchase obligations (RPOs), which mandate that states increase clean energy adoption so that the national share doubles to 43.3% in March 2030.

Honouring these RPOs would require 20 of the 30 provinces monitored to more than double the share of green power in their electricity mix, a February report by government think-tank NITI Aayog showed.

The problem is that India's states are unprepared for the rapid rise in renewable generating capacity, lack adequate transmission infrastructure and storage and would rather rely on fossil fuel for supply than risk "intermittent" renewables.

The challenges were stark in the case of Adani Green, India's largest renewable energy company, which took nearly 3-1/2 years to strike supply deals with buyers for the entire 8 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity it won in a tender widely publicised as the country's biggest.

DEMAND POOL

Yet setting targets for tenders and issuing contracts is "meaningless" so long as interest from power distribution companies is so low, said R. Srikanth, energy industry adviser and dean at India's National Institute of Advanced Studies.

And the allegations against Adani are likely to result in a further renewables slowdown, as low-cost finance from foreign investors may become more difficult to secure, Srikanth said.

A change in the way some tenders are run has exacerbated delays in the time it takes to complete renewables projects.

The tender won by Adani Green was the first major contract issued by state-run Solar Energy Corp of India (SECI) without a state-guaranteed Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).

When announced in June 2019, SECI said buyers were guaranteed, but it withdrew the provision from the deal signed a year later.

SECI's chairman told Reuters last month that a three-fold increase in tendering of renewable projects has left 30 GW of projects for which bidding is complete, but without buyers.

"You can't expect the states to respond and start signing three times the power supply agreements," R P Gupta told Reuters in an interview, adding that a "demand pool has to be created" and states had to be "sensitised" to renewables.

Brokerage JM Financial said that it now takes 8 to 10 months to sign power supply deals after a contract is awarded.

By comparison, companies that were awarded contracts between July 2018 and December 2020 needed around three months to strike supply deals, SECI data showed.

"The sudden surge in bids, large pipeline of projects under construction, mismatch in power demand and bid-pipeline ... and constraints in timely execution of projects are leading to delays in signing," JM Financial said.

Renewable energy projects have also seen cancellations, with about 4%-5% of all tendered projects annulled, and backlogs in transmission infrastructure development, Gupta said.

One solution, said Rakesh Nath, former chairman of India's Central Electricity Authority, would be knowing how much power buyers want before projects are bid for.

"Taking buyers into confidence before inviting bids may minimise delays in signing power supply agreements," he said.

Top News / World+Biz

India / Adani / Bribery Allegations

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Bangladesh's growth forecast unchanged: WB report
    Bangladesh's growth forecast unchanged: WB report
  • Faiz Ahmad Tayeb. Photo: BSS
    Import duty on raw materials for e-bikes, lithium batteries reduced from 80% to 1% in some cases: Faiz Taiyeb
  • Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who departed Israel by plane on Tuesday after being detained aboard the Gaza-bound British-flagged yacht "Madleen" after Israeli forces boarded the charity vessel as it attempted to reach the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, talks to journalists surrounded by French police as she arrives at a terminal at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, in Roissy-en-France near Paris, France, June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
    Greta Thunberg says she was kidnapped by Israel in international waters

MOST VIEWED

  • On left, Abdullah Hil Rakib, former senior vice president (SVP) of BGMEA and additional managing director of Team Group; on right, Captain Md Saifuzzaman (Guddu), a Boeing 787 Dreamliner pilot for Biman Bangladesh Airlines. Photos: Collected
    Ex-BGMEA SVP Abdullah Hil Rakib, Biman 787 pilot Saifuzzaman drown in boating accident in Canada
  • File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar
    Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do
  • Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus leaves for a four-day visit to the United Kingdom from the Dhaka airport on 9 June 2025. Photo: CA Press Wing
    CA Yunus leaves for UK; discussion expected on renewable energy investment, laundered money
  • File Photo: Collected
    Enhanced surveillance at Ctg airport amid rising global Covid-19 cases
  • Inside the aid ship stormed by Israeli forces on 9 June 2025. Photo: BBC
    Israeli forces stormed aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg bound for Gaza: Freedom Flotilla Coalition
  • Photos: Collected
    Abdul Hamid wasn't arrested because he's not wanted right now: Home adviser

Related News

  • Curfew and internet ban imposed in Manipur after arrests spark fresh unrest
  • Explosions, fires rock Singapore-flagged cargo ship off India's Kerala coast
  • India's $80 billion coal-power boom is running short of water
  • Indian man held for trafficking three women from Bangladesh
  • 'Didn’t think I'd make it back': Assam man returns home after being pushed into Bangladesh

Features

Illustration: Duniya Jahan/ TBS

Forget Katy Perry, here’s Bangladesh’s Ruthba Yasmin shooting for the moon

8h | Features
File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar

Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do

1d | Features
Photo collage shows political posters in Bagerhat. Photos: Jannatul Naym Pieal

From Sheikh Dynasty to sibling rivalry: Bagerhat signals a turning tide in local politics

3d | Bangladesh
Illustration: TBS

Unbearable weight of the white coat: The mental health crisis in our medical colleges

6d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Greta Thunberg deported from Israel

Greta Thunberg deported from Israel

10h | TBS World
BNP is not a revolutionary party: Mirza Fakhrul

BNP is not a revolutionary party: Mirza Fakhrul

11h | TBS Today
News of The Day, 10 JUNE 2025

News of The Day, 10 JUNE 2025

8h | TBS News of the day
Trump sends 2,000 more National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles

Trump sends 2,000 more National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles

11h | TBS World
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net