India’s lightbulb moment: Not using this crisis for meaningful energy sector reform would be a waste

The 9-minute lights-off on April 5 was an interesting event in many ways—the appeal of the PM’s call, the extent of public participation, and the expert management of the national electricity grid. Switching off, and then bringing back in just a few minutes, a massive 32,000 MW of power, is a great technical accomplishment.

This accomplishment, though, shouldn’t hide the fact that even pre-Covid, India’s power sector has been facing a mounting financial crisis. It would now be easy to sidestep this problem and provide an unconditional bailout to the discoms yet again. Still, this event could also be seen as a lightbulb moment, an opportunity to take a step back, to address key issues, and plan for a more sustainable future. What are these issues?

First, as India continues to integrate renewable energy (RE) in keeping with energy security and climate change goals, a market-based, automatic mechanism for integration of infirm renewable power into the grid is non-negotiable.