India has emerged as a major global force in renewable energy, with the world taking notice of its progress and growing ambitions, said Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Education and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Pralhad Joshi, while addressing the media at the conclusion of the Bharat Renewable Energy (BRE) Summit 2026 here today.
He said that Bharat Mandapam had brought together global policymakers, investors, industry leaders and innovators from across the world. With participation from more than 135 countries, the Summit emerged as one of India's largest global platforms for renewable energy. He noted that this was the first time that three important events in the renewable energy sector had been held together, with overwhelming participation from domestic and international stakeholders demonstrating global confidence in India's renewable energy growth story.
The Summit was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on 2nd November 2026. In his address, the Prime Minister highlighted the strategic importance of India's sustained investments in renewable energy in strengthening the country's resilience to global disruptions, arising from COVID-19 pandemic and the West Asia crisis. He observed that India’s investment in the renewable energy sector has largely shielded the country from these disruptions.
The Prime Minister underscored that India's renewable energy journey is not only transforming its domestic energy landscape but also generating solutions and experiences that can benefit the world. Emphasising India's commitment to sharing its innovations and achievements with humanity, he highlighted the potential of India's clean energy success to support the energy transition in countries across the world. Calling for greater participation in the clean energy innovation ecosystem, the Prime Minister invited startups, IITs, innovators and entrepreneurs to develop solutions and business models through which an increasing number of household energy requirements can be met using clean energy.
Organised from 2nd-5th November, the four-day summit brought together global policymakers, industry leaders, investors, technology providers, researchers, startups and international institutions on a common platform to advance the clean energy transition. The Summit witnessed strong participation with over 75000 visitors, 400 plus exhibitors and more than 627 speakers across 113 sessions, with representation from 135 countries with about 800 delegates, including the Partner countries, ISA members, International Organisations, and Diplomatic Missions located in India. High-level ministerial participation included 32 international Ministers, 6 Chief Ministers and 10 State Energy Ministers, reflecting strong engagement from both national and sub-national stakeholders.
By bringing together policymakers, investors, industry, research institutions, startups and international development partners, the Summit has strengthened confidence in India's clean energy market and helped translate national and global ambitions into a forward-looking agenda for implementation.
The summit highlighted that India's clean energy policies and democratisation of the energy transition, decoupling economic development from fossil-fuel emissions. India has accelerated its energy transition in the last few years, with more than a quarter of India's annual electricity consumption coming from renewable energy sources in the last financial year. India's experience proved that sustained investments in renewable energy, supported by enabling and stable policy regime, institutional reforms and technology innovations, can strengthen energy security while supporting economic growth.
A major outcome of the Summit was the strong confidence expressed by domestic and international investors in India's clean energy investment opportunity. To achieve the national target of 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity, India requires investments of approximately USD 220 billion. Discussions during the Summit showed that the availability of capital is not a constraint, with investors expressing positive interest in India's long-term clean energy growth prospects, extending well beyond the immediate 2030 requirements.
Importantly, investor participation extended beyond traditional strategic investors to include pension funds, institutional investors, and providers of long-term patient capital, reflecting the growing depth of India's clean energy financing ecosystem.
The deliberations highlighted the importance of bankable power purchase agreements, predictable offtake arrangements, clearer risk allocation and deeper bond markets. The role of new instruments like Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) and blended finance in mobilising capital at scale was also discussed.
The Union Minister of New & Renewable Energy held several high-level engagements during the Summit, including a CEO level clean energy Investment Roundtable wherein the Chief Ministers, State Energy Ministers, Senior Government officials and Industry leaders participated. The round table identified priorities for turning renewable energy ambition into delivery. These include synchronised planning of generation, transmission, storage and demand centres, and greater certainty in land, approvals and execution. Besides this, he held bilateral meetings with the French Minister Delegate of Ecological Transition and Denmark's Minister for Business and Competitiveness. The leaders discussed the issues of common interest and that of global energy scenarios. The Summit also provided platform to more than 100 Business-to-Business (B2B) meetings that were held on the sidelines which provided businesses with opportunities for partnerships and collaboration.
The Summit's deliberations reflected the evolution of India's clean energy agenda from expanding installed renewable energy capacity towards building a reliable, flexible and integrated power system. With rising electricity demand from industry, cooling, electric mobility and data centres, the next phase of the transition will require greater emphasis on energy storage, transmission infrastructure, grid flexibility, ancillary services, forecasting, demand response and green open access.
Energy storage emerged as one of the most important near-term priorities. Discussions also emphasised the need to align storage and transmission planning with renewable energy procurement and emerging demand centres, while strengthening institutions, grid management, and modern AI-based systems to forecast wind and solar generation. New contracts and technical designs like Round-the-clock Renewable Energy and Firm and Dispatchable Renewable Energy (FDRE), including the globally competitive rate of Rs. 5.25/ unit discovered in the recent SECI tender, were also discussed. It attracted a huge interest from the foreign delegates and policymakers.
The Summit also highlighted the growing importance of green procurement in enhancing industrial competitiveness, supporting exports and accelerating industrial decarbonisation. It also highlighted the growing interest in the transition from petro-economy, dependent on fossil fuels, to electro-economy, based on independent electrical power systems.
Deepening India's domestic clean energy manufacturing ecosystem was another major focus of BRE Summit & Expo 2026. Discussions emphasised the need to move beyond assembly towards domestic manufacturing of materials, components, equipment and advanced technologies, supported by shared laboratories, pilot manufacturing lines, demonstration facilities and testing and certification infrastructure.
The Summit brought together stakeholders working across next-generation solar technologies, perovskite cells, recyclable wind turbine materials, long-duration energy storage, electrolysers, fuel cells, artificial intelligence use cases in renewable energy and floating solar.
The Summit placed particular emphasis on connecting research and innovation with commercial deployment. Public procurement, field demonstrations, testing and certification infrastructure and collaboration between industry and research institutions were identified as important instruments for accelerating the commercialisation of Indian technologies.
Youth participation and entrepreneurship were integral to the innovation agenda. The Summit saw strong participation of more than 300 startups across growth and early stage in the RE Hackathon. Strong participation across youth from IIT/Universities/Colleges/schools was also seen in the RE GEN Challenge. The innovation ecosystem in the expo featured 70 startup pods, 40 academic posters and 10 research papers, bringing together young talent, researchers, and entrepreneurs to contribute to India's emerging clean energy technology ecosystem.
The Fourth International Conference on Green Hydrogen provided an important platform for advancing India's green hydrogen ambitions, with discussions focusing on the development of dependable domestic demand, long-term offtake arrangements, export opportunities, standards & certification, testing and safety frameworks.
An important commercial development was the signing of an MoU between Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and Power2X, from Rotterdam to advance the supply and offtake of green molecules from India to international markets. The first tranche indicated a potential volume of 3 lakh tonnes per annum of green methanol, reflecting the growing opportunities for India in emerging global green molecule markets.
The Ninth Session of the ISA Assembly marked an important milestone in international solar cooperation. The Assembly considered the Director General's Report for 2026, the Workplan and Budget for 2027, audited accounts for 2025 and proposals relating to Partner Organisation status for the African Union, COMESA, SELCO, SNV and the All India Discoms Association.
A major international announcement was the proposed USD 200 million Africa Solar Facility under the ISA, aimed at facilitating greater access to finance and accelerating solar deployment across African countries. Discussions identified project aggregation, blended finance, patient capital, local-currency financing and payment-risk mitigation as important instruments for mobilising investment. The Africa50 Distributed Renewable Energy Fund and Nigeria DRE Fund were highlighted as financing models. The Africa50 DRE Fund is designed to address investment barriers associated with smaller DRE projects, including project-level and payment risks, through a combination of regional and global financing structures. The Francophone and Sahel Energy Resilience Initiative was also highlighted, focusing on solar-plus-storage solutions for critical power requirements, rooftop solar for public facilities and productive-use solar for agriculture and livelihoods.
Drawing upon India's experience in solarising agricultural pumps, the ISA also advanced its ambition of deploying one million solar pumps globally. The ISA Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Platform aims to facilitate up to 500 MW of solar capacity across SIDS by 2030. The SUNRISE photovoltaic and battery circularity network has expanded to 35 countries.
These initiatives reflect India's approach of combining domestic experience, technology, financing, capacity building and implementation capabilities to support the clean energy aspirations of the Global South.
The Summit saw the launch of the ISA Academy and the Global Capability Centre – SHINE, aimed at strengthening capacity building, digital learning, and cooperation in grid-related areas. A total of 10 MoUs and Framework Agreements were signed during the Summit, expanding cooperation across technology, research, capacity building, manufacturing and project implementation.
Framework Agreements were signed by ISA with Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the India Energy & Climate Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and Schneider Electric Foundation. MoUs were signed by ISA with Shakti Pumps (India) Limited and Railway Energy Management Company Limited, among other partnerships announced during the Summit.
The BRE Summit & Expo 2026 also strengthened the knowledge and evidence base of India's renewable energy ecosystem through the release of 37 reports, assessments, guidebooks and digital platforms.
The publications released at the event cover policy, manufacturing, deployment, skilling and safety, and should strengthen the renewable energy ecosystem on each of these fronts. Ease of Doing Solar and the Renewable Energy State Assessment Framework (RE-SAF) give policymakers and states a common basis for benchmarking progress and identifying barriers. The National Hydrogen Survey adds to this for the green hydrogen sector. The studies on solar manufacturing, wind indigenisation and battery electrolyte show where domestic capacity gaps remain and where industry can build supply chains. The Skilling Blueprint for the top 100 RE districts links workforce readiness to deployment. Taken together, these publications should give investors, developers, utilities and state agencies clearer evidence to plan and decide on. They should also improve coordination between government, industry and development partners, and support India’s push for domestic manufacturing and faster deployment.
The Summit reaffirmed India's commitment to achieving its clean energy goals while contributing to global energy security, sustainable development and climate action. It also demonstrated that India's renewable energy journey is increasingly defined not only by the scale of capacity addition, but by its ability to develop integrated energy systems, attract long-term investment, foster innovation, strengthen domestic manufacturing and share successful solutions with the world.
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NS/ RS/ LL
