Accelerating Clean Energy (ACE) is WRI India’s flagship annual research convening on India's energy transition. ACE 2026 will be co-anchored with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) as a knowledge partner and the IIT-B Research Hub for Green Energy and Sustainability (GESH).

ACE 2026

India’s energy transition is entering a more demanding phase. Renewable penetration is increasing, cooling demand is rising rapidly, storage deployment is expanding, and distributed systems are multiplying across states. At the same time, transmission congestion persists, DISCOM finances remain stressed, regulatory frameworks are adjusting unevenly, and supply chain risks are more visible.

The constraint is no longer primary technological; it is increasingly systematic. System strain refers to the misalignment between the pace of demand and the institutional, financial, infrastructural, digital and material capacities required to absorb and coordinate technological deployment. Further, the strain is not evenly distributed. Its effects fall differently across states, utilities, and populations.

ACE 2026 reflects WRI India’s role at the intersection of research, policy analysis, and institutional engagement in India’s energy transition. It seeks to examine the technical, institutional, financial, and material conditions required for reliable scaling in India’s energy transition through peer-reviewed research and disciplined cross-sector dialogue. ACE 2026 will also curate plenaries, panel discussions, roundtables, and scaling clinics to delve deeper into the central research question.