Read the full transcript of energy expert Kanika Chawla’s talk titled “Inside India’s Astonishing Solar Revolution”, at TED Countdown Summit 2025 on June 17, 2025.
India’s Audacious Solar Commitment
KANIKA CHAWLA: In 2014, India made a commitment to install 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022. At the time that it made this commitment, it had an installed capacity of 3 gigawatts of solar power. So it was basically committing to doubling its solar capacity every 18 months. The audacity of this commitment left the world divided. The world’s third largest energy consumer and second largest coal consumer was betting on solar. And while many thought that this goal was unrealistic and overly ambitious, others like me thought it was all very exciting and potentially the opportunity of a lifetime.
As it turns out, I was right. And India reached this milestone in February 2025, becoming one of the first few countries in the world to do so, and simultaneously unlocking $90 billion in investment and creating 300,000 new solar jobs. For India, the solar revolution has become something of a gift that keeps on giving. It has catapulted India into a global climate leader while boosting power supply in the country to end blackouts and brownouts for local communities.
This is why it is committed to keep going. It is now working on a goal of 500 gigawatts of clean power by 2030, which basically means that in 2030, every second electron used in India, be it in a household, in industry or in transport, would come from a clean power source.
Economics, Not Ideology
To me, this solar revolution has been a beacon of hope, not just for the scale of the ambition, but for the motivation behind it. India did not bet on solar for ideological reasons. It bet on solar for economic ones.
It was early to see what most of the world can see clearly today, that the transition to renewable energy is good economics.
This has been my primary takeaway from the work that I’ve done with a range of countries over the last 15 years. I’ve spent much of that time trying to answer a question that many of you may be thinking about right now, which is, the commitments are all well and good, but how are we going to pay for it? Especially in developing countries where the cost of finance continues to be high, where as much as 70% of the cost of a single solar electron could be from the cost of capital.
Innovation Beyond Technology
And unsurprisingly, the answer is through innovation. And while technology innovation has rapidly brought down the price of solar energy, making it the cheapest source of electricity in every single market in the world, technology innovation alone is not getting it done. India’s solar story is as much a story about business models and market design as it is about technology.
For instance, when India first made this commitment, the private sector responded with eagerness. Developers and manufacturers came readily to India’s solar party. But capital remained elusive. Much of this power that India wanted to deploy would have to be bought by its electricity utilities. And these electricity utilities have chronically been in very bad financial health. So adding large shares of variable solar, which at the time was still a bit more expensive, into their mix was not going to make their life any easier. And so they delayed payments to solar developers, putting many of them out of business and spooking investors.
This was not a great look for a country that was trying to raise $100 billion of solar investment. But the government experimented. It worked with state governments around the country to get them to demand solar power from their electricity utilities. It worked with other large consumers, like the railways, to get them to act as anchor customers for the development of new solar parks. And finally, it worked with development partners to make sure that the energy infrastructure was fortified so that more solar energy could be integrated into the grid.
This did not solve all of the problems of India’s electricity utilities. But it did make sure that these utilities paid their solar bills on time. And that was enough to get capital to also come to India’s solar party.
The Power of Boring Solutions
So this very exciting revolution was really built on the back of some quite boring things. Things like plans and policies and business models. But this is not unique to India. A lot of examples from around the world of countries using some of these same boring tools to unlock large solar gains has given me this belief that the road from ambition to action can be distilled down into three distinct levers. To me, these are planning, innovation, and localization.
Plans are really what make commitments real. A really good example of this is the work that we at Sustainable Energy for All have done with the government of Ghana.
Ghana already had a net zero commitment to get to net zero by 2017. But it was in the making of this plan that they were able to look at the evidence as well as look at the trade-offs and not just develop a how-to guide, but actually plan to get to this net zero now by 2060.
Innovation Drives Implementation
But plans have to be put into motion. And this is where innovation comes in. And developing countries are hotbeds for innovation. For instance, in sub-Saharan Africa, where the scaling of small solar solutions is curtailed not just by their financial viability but also by quality concerns, an innovative results-based financing mechanism that structures the payment partly at the start of a project and partly at the end of a project, once quality checks have been made, addresses both these risks. One such facility leveraged $13.5 million to unlock 55,000 new connections across five countries.
The Power of Localization
And finally, the energy transition is a story about creating value and prosperity. And this is where localization becomes really important. For example, here in Kenya, a renewable energy powerhouse, where 90% of its power already comes from clean energy sources, putting it well on its way to reach its goal of 100% clean power by 2030. But in this pursuit, Kenya imported $50 million worth of solar panels in a single year alone. This is money it sent out of the country. But the government is having none of it anymore. It is now developing special manufacturing zones that will not just keep this money in the country, but also create jobs for local Kenyans.
An Irreversible Transition
These are not isolated examples. These are evidence that the energy transition is already underway, that the energy transition is irreversible, and that it’s being driven by developing countries. 84% of the world’s population live in a developing country. That is four out of every five people in this world live in a developing country. These are countries in motion. They need more energy to meet unmet demand, to power their economies, and to create jobs for their youth. The choices that they make to meet this demand, the fuels that they decide to use, will determine what the emissions of the future look like.
But they’re already choosing renewable energy. And they’re choosing renewables because renewables is good economics, and they now know that it offers them opportunities for growth, development, and prosperity. It is now up to all of us to enable these countries at scale, using the seemingly boring tools of planning, of market design, and of capacity building, to keep this momentum up. Because the time is right, and we can’t stop now.
Thank you.
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