In power sector, regulatory priorities need sorting out

Surplus generation in one region can be traded to regions facing shortage. 4 min readJul 30, 2026 04:04 PM IST First published on: Jul 30, 2026 at 04:04 PM IST By Sanjiv Sahai India’s renewable energy sector is facing institutional challenges that need flexible solutions. Propelled by falling solar module prices and government policy, solar capacity has expanded to 162 GW by June 2026. Yet at the very moment this transformation demands smarter, more flexible market products, India’s regulator is moving the opposite way, proposing to hand control of the power exchanges to Grid-India, a government utility whose institutional DNA is built for managing transmission systems, not commercial decisions.Between May and December last year, over two billion units of solar electricity, enough to power