Ocean Wall on India's nuclear plans:
The Hoot this Week: 8th September - 12th September 2025
| India’s nuclear ambitions have been building for several years. In 2022, NPCIL, the country’s largest power producer, laid out plans to build two 700 megawatt reactors in Madhya Pradesh. Around the same time, NTPC, India’s dominant energy conglomerate, signalled its nuclear debut with two reactors in Haryana. For a country where nuclear still provides just 3% of electricity, these announcements marked an inflection point, signalling the start of a structural shift in the energy mix.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has placed nuclear power at the centre of India’s energy strategy. Under the National Nuclear Energy Mission, his government has committed to boosting capacity from today’s 8.88 GW to 22.48 GW by 2031–32, with a long-term target of 100 GW by 2047. The scale of ambition reflects both urgency and necessity. Coal still supplies roughly 70% of India’s electricity, while solar and wind, though expanding rapidly, cannot alone provide the firm, round-the-clock baseload required to support industrialization, AI infrastructure, and rising household demand. Nuclear is being positioned as the anchor that can stabilize the grid as renewables scale.
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