Clean electricity supply must keep pace

Accelerating EV adoption can unlock greater gains with a cleaner grid

As India’s road transport shifts toward electrification, ensuring a cleaner electricity mix becomes increasingly important to advance transport decarbonisation efforts. At present, EV charging is largely dependent on grid supply and is only as clean as the grid from which it draws power. Supplying electricity for India’s projected EV stock charging in 2030 would require ~14 gigawatts (GW) equivalent of dedicated wind and solar capacity.

With more EVs on the road, meeting their charging needs with clean electricity is essential to unlocking the full decarbonisation potential of the transport sector. While clean energy currently accounts for 22.3% of India’s electricity generation, achieving the National Electricity Plan (NEP)-14 targets could raise this to ~50% by 2032. This would significantly lower the grid’s emission factor from 727 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour (gCO2/kWh) to 430 gCO2/kWh. In 2030, charging India’s projected EV stock is expected to require ~25 BU of electricity, equivalent to ~14 GW of wind and solar capacity, making it crucial to align charging with periods with high renewable availability, particularly during solar hours.

The existing share of renewable energy in the national generation mix, as well as in states’ electricity procurement portfolios, serves as a useful proxy to assess how clean current EV charging is and to inform future planning for the projected EV-driven electricity demand.

National level

In 2024, wind and solar constituted 10.8% of India’s total electricity generation. Assuming that the EV charging follows the national electricity mix, approximately 10.8% of the electricity used for charging EVs came from wind and solar resources. The share of all clean resources in the electricity used for charging EVs is 22.3%, highlighting the partial decarbonisation of EV charging.

State level

At the state level, the share of renewable energy in the electricity mix fulfilling the EV charging needs varies. It depends on how much solar, wind, and hydro each state has in its electricity procurement mix.

For this assessment, we selected 10 Indian states based on (a) total EV sales in FY2025, (b) ensuring regional representation and (c) recency of state EV policy. The selected states are Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

For FY2025, Karnataka led with 37.6% of electricity mix coming from solar, wind and hydro, providing the cleanest charging option for EVs. Odisha (29.8%) and Assam stood out with a significant share of hydro, whereas Rajasthan (24.2%) and Madhya Pradesh (23.8%) have relatively higher wind and solar shares.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh, the country’s top EV market by volume, supplies 18.3% of total electricity for charging the EVs from clean resources. In contrast, solar and wind resource-rich states (with limited hydro capacity), like Gujarat (12.3%) and Tamil Nadu (12.8%), have a limited share of clean electricity to supply to EVs. It reflects a varied picture of the overall emission reduction opportunity in these states.

India’s EV adoption is poised for sustained growth, driven by a supportive policy environment, rising fuel prices for conventional vehicles and stricter emission regulations to curb vehicular pollution. As EV penetration increases, projecting and fulfilling the associated electricity demand through clean electricity sources becomes critical. This study considers two EV stock scenarios for 2030/2032 and their corresponding electricity requirement to estimate the wind and solar capacity needed to meet this demand.

IEA scenario

The International Energy Agency (IEA)’s Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), which incorporates existing EV-related policies, regulations, public announcements, investments and prevailing market trends, projects India’s electric vehicle stock to grow to approximately 43 million two- and three-wheelers, 2.3 million electric cars, 0.14 million electric buses, 0.22 million electric vans and 0.014 million electric trucks by 2030. The projected increase is from approximately 6.6 million two- and three-wheelers, 0.24 million cars, 12,000 buses and 13,000 vans in 2024. To support this adoption, the IEA estimates the electricity requirement for vehicle charging at 25,300 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2030. Meeting this demand entirely through renewable sources, wind and solar, would correspond to approximately ~14 GW of wind and solar capacity with a weighted average capacity utilisation factor (CUF) of 21%. This equivalent wind and solar capacity is ~3% of the wind and solar capacity target (486 GW) under NEP-14 for 2032.

20th Electric Power Survey of India

The 20th Electric Power Survey of India included EV as an emerging power demand sector. This scenario estimates the total EVs on the road to be 49 million in 2032. To estimate the electricity requirement of the EV stock in 2032, assumptions regarding energy efficiency (kWh/km) and distance travelled (km) in a year were considered. Based on that, 27,000 GWh of electricity will be required for EV stocks charging. Meeting this demand entirely through wind and solar would correspond to ~15 GW of wind and solar capacity with a weighted average CUF of 21%.

In planning for an EV-led future, the existing capacity addition planning can reliably meet the increase in electricity demand from charging. However, to fully harness the benefits of the EV transition, the focus must shift towards supplying this demand through renewable sources, especially wind and solar, during hours of maximum availability.

Supplying India’s growing EV charging demand with clean electricity represents a key opportunity in India’s decarbonisation efforts. According to the IEA, the electricity required to charge the existing EV stock in 2024 accounted for 0.2% of India’s final electricity consumption. It expects this figure to rise to 1.1% of India’s final electricity consumption in 2030, indicating a ninefold increase in charging needs.

At present, only a small proportion of grid electricity supplying the EV charging needs comes from renewable energy resources, with the grid having an emission factor of 727 gCO2/kWh. As per the NEP-14 targets, India will have ~35% wind and solar by 2032 in its overall electricity mix, up from 10.8% in 2024. This share reaches ~50% when including all non-fossil fuel-based resources. By fulfilling NEP-14 targets by 2032, the grid emission factor will likely reduce to 430 gCO2/kWh by FY2032.

As depicted in the figure below, across vehicle categories, just moving away from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to EVs can cut emissions by 33%-55%. These emissions can be reduced further by moving away from fossil fuel-based electricity resources to clean electricity resources.

Further, Ember’s recent study estimated that renewables can meet up to 83% of daytime electricity demand in 2032. Consequently, if EV charging is strategically aligned with high renewable energy generation periods, i.e. pushed to daytime, then up to 83% of EV charging demand can come from clean sources.