Accelerating Clean Energy in India
Insights and collaboration for India's clean energy transition
Accelerating Clean Energy (ACE) is WRI India’s flagship annual research convening on India's energy transition. Each year, ACE brings together representatives from the scientific community, academia, think tanks, national and state governments, and the private sector. Through interactive, research-focused sessions, the conference 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.
Key themes in previous editions of ACE include:
- The state of industrial decarbonisation in India
- Sustainable cooling solutions in a warming world
- Financing mechanisms for India’s energy transition
- Inclusive and equitable energy transitions
- New and emerging technologies
- Circularity in renewable energy supply chains
- Climate-smart villages
- Critical minerals in India
ACE reflects WRI India’s role at the intersection of research, policy analysis, and institutional engagement in India’s energy transition.
Some key resources:
- How Cities can Support India’s Clean Energy Transition: This report analyses energy transition initiatives and programs in 10 cities across India, assessing the factors and challenges influencing their energy transition pathways.
- A Spoonful of Solar to Help the Medicine go Down: This report examines decentralized renewable energy interventions in 22 health facilities across six states in India, analysing various financing, ownership, and operating models.
- Lifting All Boats: Productive Use of Renewable Energy for Sustainable Livelihoods in India: This report studies the on-the-ground adoption of 21 productive use of renewable energy (PURE) interventions across nine Indian states. It aims to document and analyse the diverse implementation and financing models across the case studies as well as the challenges encountered.
- ESG Reporting for Indian Electricity Distribution Utilities: Challenges and Opportunities: Through a literature review on the global context of ESG reporting and disclosure frameworks and analysis of existing ESG reporting in India, this issue brief provides an overview of ESG frameworks and principles in India’s electricity sector.
- Scaling RTS adoption in India’s SMEs through Demand Aggregation and Machine Learning: This practice note provides insights on pilot projects that aggregated solar rooftop demand at the cluster level to drive the adoption of renewable energy in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Haryana.
- Financing Distributed Renewable Energy for Livelihoods in India Through Private and Commercial Sources: This working paper provides a first-cut assessment of how private and commercial sources can enable affordable and accessible financing for distributed renewable energy-enabled livelihood activities in India.
- Navigating Industrial Decarbonization in India: Learnings From Different Approaches and Best Practices: The issue brief reviews pathways for decarbonising the steel, cement, and aluminium sectors in India by drawing upon published reports and roadmaps, assessments of international best practices, and case studies.
- Energy Transition Preparedness Initiative (ETPI) Transport Report FY 23-24: Covering ten Indian states, this report studies state-level actions, plans, and strategies for energy transition in the transport sector. It uses five key indicators to assess their transparency, governance, and participatory decision making.
- ETPI Buildings Report FY 23-24: This report studies energy transition in the buildings sector across ten Indian states. It assesses their progress through indicators like Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) compliance, promotion of rooftop solar photovoltaic systems, and the presence of energy-efficient appliances and clean energy in public buildings and affordable housing.
- ETPI Electricity Report 2020-21: This report examines energy transition in the electricity sector across ten Indian states. It assesses 11 indicators spanning long-term vision for electricity transition, integrated resource planning, the financial health of DISCOMs, and regulatory governance, among others.
- ETPI Cross-Cutting Themes Report: This report studies the cross-cutting aspects of the energy transition, comprising low-carbon development strategies, local capacity, and articulation of just transition at the state level across ten states in India. It aims to identify areas where gaps continue to exist and those which offer the states opportunities to progress.
