India has recently updated its carbon emissions goals. The latest policy plans to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP as of 2005 by 47 percent by 2035. Its Nationally Determined Contribution — a figure every signatory to the 2015 Paris climate accords is expected to provide on a regular basis — now calls for 60 percent of its electric power capacity to come from non-fossil sources by 2035 and targets net-zero emissions by 2070. That is a far more ambitious target than a former world leader has set — or chosen to ignore entirely. Targets are all well and good, but achieving them is where the heavy lifting begins. In its latest report, Ember says “solar and battery storage can meet as much as 90 percent of India’s electricity demand at lower LCOE than the average power purchase costs in most states.” Kostantsa Rangelova. a global electricity analyst at Ember, said, “The dramatic improvement in battery economics over the past two years has delivered the missing piece that turns sunshine into reliable electricity day and night. For solar-rich countries like India, this makes the case for becoming a global solar superpower. The question is no longer whether solar can power India’s electricity system, but how quickly it can scale.” According to its analysis, Ember claims that plunging costs for battery energy storage systems (BESS) mean India could meet 90 percent of India’s electricity needs with solar and storage “at a competitive INR 5.06/kWh ($56/MWh).” Solar already plays a large and growing role in India’s power system, Ember says. It accounted for 9.4 percent of electricity generation in 2025, nearly double what it was in 2022. “Solar plays an important role during the day, meeting up to a quarter of demand during the sunniest hours of the day but none at night. “Installed solar capacity reached 143 GW in FY2025-26, up from less than 5 GW in FY2014-15, contributing to India’s broader goal of 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030. Solar could play an even larger role in India’s electricity system over the longer term — especially with the help of cheap batteries.” 500 GW By 2030 In a report dated April 7, 2026, IEEFA said India’s target to reach 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030 and 60 percent non-fossil fuel in its energy mix by 2035…..will depend as much on structure of debt finance as on technology or policy.” The report finds that “India’s credit markets are already differentiating between clean and thermal energy assets, with consequences for company balance sheets that are hard to ignore. “India’s dependence on imported fossil fuels — for crude oil and LNG for power — leaves its economy acutely exposed to geopolitical shocks and supply disruptions, reinforcing the urgent need to accelerate transition. “The credit divergence between renewable and thermal assets is already visible across key financial metrics. Renewable-focused utilities enjoy stronger margins, thanks to zero fuel costs, broader access to offshore and international financing, and stronger interest from global institutional lenders. “Meanwhile, thermal-linked credits are being progressively shut out of international capital markets. All outstanding USD-denominated bonds from Indian power utilities are linked to renewable or hydro assets.” Turning Night Into Day In a recent post on Substack entitled Night Into Day, Bill McKibben described the speed of the transition to battery storage technology. It begins with a chart by Nicholas Fulgham of Ember showing California’s source of electricity on March 29, 2026. Credit: Ember via Bill McKibben McKibben wrote, “The huge yellow blob in the middle represents solar generation, the absolutely dominant source of supply from about 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. when it drops very quickly to zero. This is a phenomenon called sunset, which used to be the main argument against solar power. “But now look at the purple blob to its right. That’s battery storage coming online as the sun goes down. Those batteries spent the afternoon soaking up [cheap] sunshine and now they are distributing it back to the grid. “As Californians get home from work, turn on lights, cook dinner, start charging their EVs…..batteries are providing most of the power, outstripping imported power (much of which is renewable too), natural gas, and other sources like nuclear. You will notice wind picking up too, as the onshore breezes start to blow from the Pacific. “This is entirely different from how this graph would have looked even a year or two ago. Here’s how Fulghum explained it on Linked In: At 7pm, batteries reached 12.3 GW of output, meeting 42.8% of grid demand! More Than Six Hoover Dams “To put that kind of output during peak demand hours into perspective, it’s equivalent to the output from: 15-20 combined-cycle gas plants 6 Hoover dams More than the all-time peak demand of Portugal or Greece “And it’s not just a short peak anymore. Batteries stayed above 20 percent of grid demand from 5.50 pm to 9.35 pm, almost four hours, and above. And here’s the thing: this has all happened in the blink of an eye. More than 90% of California’s battery fleet was built in the last five years. Total deployment is now over 17 GW, up from just 1.3 GW in 2020,” McKibben said. UAE & Chile Go Big On Batteries McKibben cites a report by Ben Payton of Reuters who says the race is on for “round-the-clock” solar power. He uses the example of a big project in the UAE, which is “combining the solar array with a massive amount of battery capacity. The aim is to store enough power generated during daylight hours so that a minimum of 1 GW of electricity is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Sharp-eyed readers will note that the UAE is a petrostate, yet it is leaning heavily on renewables for the future. Chile is also pursuing large scale battery storage. It has 9 GW of storage capacity in operation, construction or testing, with a further 27 GW in the development pipeline, according to the industry association ACERA. “Chile is a very long country, so we rely very much on transmission to move energy from the north, where we have a lot of solar, and also from the very south, where we have a lot of wind,” said María Teresa Ruiz-Tagle, executive director of the Corporate Leaders Group for Climate Action (CLG) Chile. “So, to have battery storage projects in different points of the country could also help the system.” She added that storage is key to tackling the problem of the electricity grid being unable to absorb solar and wind power at times of peak generation. In 2024, 19 percent of all solar and wind electricity generated in the country had to be curtailed, which is a polite way of saying “wasted.” McKibben ends by saying, “Battery storage gives us some hope of liberating ourselves from that old energy storage medium — the barrel of oil — before more people die in the ugly wars being fought over its ownership. But of course that would challenge the power of the richest people in America, which is why our current government will keep funneling money to [the defense industry] instead. We have to make a huge choice about where to point our intelligence, our technology, our hopes. November 3 can’t come fast enough.” Amen to that.