"India's renewable energy challenge has shifted from generation to evacuation and storage." Examine this in the light of the Green Energy Corridor phases and PM-DHARA.

India's solar and wind plants make up 37% of installed capacity but only 13% of generation [2]. The harder task now is moving clean power out of RE-rich regions and supplying it after sunset. The statement largely holds, and the Green Energy Corridor (GEC) phases trace this shift.

Why evacuation and storage are now the bottleneck

• Transmission lag: only 58% of targeted transmission lines were added in 2024-25 [2].
• Curtailment: RE output is cut when grids are congested; NITI Aayog found no transparent public data on curtailment [5].
• Intermittency: evening-peak demand arrives after solar output falls, so energy must be shifted in time.

GEC phases: building the wires

• GEC-I (intra-State): transmission lines in 8 RE-rich States [4].
• GEC-II (intra-State): ~10,750 ckm of lines for ~20 GW in 7 States, with 33% Central Financial Assistance [3].
• Outcome: 24 GW of evacuation capacity commissioned across 10 States [4].
• Storage, separately: two Viability Gap Funding (VGF) schemes back about 43 GWh of batteries [6].

PM-DHARA: wires and storage in one scheme

• Intra-State lines to evacuate up to 135 GW, plus 50 GWh BESS, by FY 2032-33 [1].
• Outlay Rs 1,86,405 crore; central support Rs 54,082 crore [1].
• TBCB for greenfield, cost-plus for brownfield; STUs implement, private developers on a BOOM model [1].
• Linked to 900 GW non-fossil capacity by 2035 [1].

Gaps that remain

• Execution: the target is over five times the 24 GW achieved [1][4]. The Standing Committee on Energy (2024) blamed delays on right-of-way, land and clearance problems [7].
• Storage scale: assuming four-hour batteries, 50 GWh gives about 12.5 GW for four hours, which is small against 135 GW.
• Finance: the central share (~29%) is below GEC-II's 33% [1][3]. The rest falls on loss-making DISCOMs through transmission charges [2].
• Markets: storage has no framework to be paid for the grid services it provides [5].

India's RE challenge has therefore moved from installing capacity to integrating it into the grid. PM-DHARA should come with uniform right-of-way compensation and a single clearance portal [7], public curtailment data, time-of-use tariffs and payments for storage [5]. It can then turn installed RE into clean power that reaches consumers, advancing SDG 7 and the 900 GW goal.