Examine the emerging categories (EVs, captive power, biofuels) that traditional energy statistics frameworks fail to capture adequately.

India's energy statistics architecture was built for a fossil-fuel, grid-centric economy. As consumption diversifies, MoSPI's Expert Committee on Energy Statistics (2026) found that legacy coverage, definitions and estimation methods leave three fast-growing categories poorly measured [1].

Electric vehicles: a new end-use with no measurement channel

• EV charging appears in billing data as ordinary domestic or commercial load, so mobility energy demand cannot be separated from household consumption [1].
• Private and captive charging points largely escape metering-based reporting, making transport-sector electrification invisible in the energy balance.
• Consequence: demand forecasting and distribution-network planning proceed without knowing the size of the fastest-growing new load.

Captive and off-grid power: generation outside the utility system

• Industrial self-generation and off-grid renewables lie outside utility reporting chains, so installed capacity and actual generation are under-captured [1].
• Sub-sectoral industrial electricity use has had to be improved using Annual Survey of Industries data in the 33rd edition of Energy Statistics India 2026 [2].
• Consequence: distorted energy-intensity and T&D loss estimates, weakening industrial and efficiency policy.

Biofuels: rapid policy success, lagging accounting

• Ethanol blending rose from under 1.5% to the 20% (E20) target achieved in 2025, five years ahead of schedule [3], but biofuel contribution to primary energy supply remains inconsistently estimated across ministries [1].
• Non-commercial and decentralised biomass use is estimated rather than measured, understating renewables' true share.

Cross-cutting causes and remedies

• Root cause is inter-ministerial fragmentation — Power, Coal, Petroleum and MNRE maintain separate datasets with differing definitions and conversion factors [1].
• The Committee recommends alignment with ISIC Rev.5, NIC-2025 and SIEC classifications, uniform conversion factors across energy ministries, and internationally comparable energy balance tables and Sankey diagrams [1][2].

Measurement gaps are ultimately governance gaps: what is not counted cannot be planned or credibly reported. Institutionalising the Committee's recommendations — with MoSPI as coordinator and statutory-grade data-sharing among energy ministries — will give India an integrated, internationally comparable evidence base for its energy-security and Net Zero 2070 commitments.