"Transmission infrastructure, not generation capacity, is emerging as the binding constraint on India's renewable energy transition." Discuss the causes and suggest policy measures.

India's renewable capacity addition has raced ahead of the wires needed to carry it. Rating agency ICRA reports that around 37% of renewable capacity at affected substations in the northern, western and southern regions runs on Temporary General Network Access (T-GNA), facing 30–50% curtailment during solar hours — peaking at 8,617 MW in western India [1]. Generation is no longer the bottleneck; evacuation is.

Causes of the transmission bottleneck

• Planning–auction mismatch: capacity auctions (SECI/MNRE) have outpaced ISTS commissioning, leaving projects commissioned without firm long-term access; only a small fraction of TBCB transmission projects meet their scheduled commissioning date [1].
• Execution risks: land acquisition, right-of-way disputes and clearance delays stretch line completion well beyond schedule, even where schemes are awarded [4].
• Reliance on interim access: T-GNA, meant as a stop-gap of up to about eleven months, has become the default evacuation route, exposing generators to daily curtailment [1].
• Federal coordination gap: intra-State networks of RE-rich States lag the central grid, so power stalls before reaching the ISTS [3].
• Absent flexibility: thin storage and weak forecasting leave surplus midday solar with nowhere to go [5].
• Investment consequence: curtailment risk erodes developer returns and dampens fresh bidding [1].

Policy measures

• Synchronise auction timelines with CEA/CTU transmission commissioning, tendering lines ahead of generation, as done for the ISTS schemes evacuating 9 GW from Rajasthan and Karnataka [2].
• Accelerate Green Energy Corridor Phase-II intra-State works and single-window right-of-way clearance [3].
• Scale battery storage and hybrid/storage-linked tenders to shift surplus solar-hour output [5].
• Strengthen TBCB execution through milestone-linked penalties and advance land aggregation [4].

Transmission is the connective tissue of the energy transition: without it, clean megawatts remain stranded assets. Aligning grid buildout, storage and auction cycles under an integrated NEP framework will convert installed capacity into delivered electricity — securing India's 500 GW non-fossil goal and its SDG-7 commitment.