India, Oct. 25 -- Despite additional storage and transmission costs, renewables remain the preferred option.

About two decades ago, Indian policymakers made the right choice to pay greater attention to tapping renewable sources of energy, especially solar, which the country has in abundance. After a lacklustre beginning, with barely 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar capacity installed by 2011-12, the next 15 years, up to mid-2026, saw a staggering 167 GW added. In fact, between early 2025 and August 2026, as much as 50 GW of capacity was added. Unfortunately, the pace of accretion is unlikely to be maintained in the near future, as a variety of constraints, all of which could have been anticipated earlier and taken care of in time, have cropped u...