Power Ministry Sends Draft NEP 2026 To Cabinet: Secy Pankaj Agarwal

The draft of National Electricity Policy (NEP), 2026 has been sent to the Union Cabinet for an inter-ministerial discussion, Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal said on Thursday.

The policy aims to achieve financial turnaround and commercial viability of the electricity sector and ensure adequate availability of power with reliable and quality supply, while meeting peak demand and energy requirements.

"We have aggregated all the stakeholders comments. We have already moved the Cabinet note for the inter-ministerial consultation and I think it shouldn't be taking very long," Agarwal told reporters on the sidelines of 2nd Indian Power Sector Conference organised by industry body FICCI.

The new policy has been designed in line with Viksit Bharat vision 2047.

The official said that last NEP was notified in 2005 and then there were different set of challenges like access to electricity and shortages etc, and developing new sources of renewable energy was thought of as a solution, but today challenges are different.

"Today we are at a very different level...we are already at 300 gigawatt of non-fossil and now going forward, the challenges are entirely different like grid management and building transmission systems," he noted.

Grid stability is one of the dimensions of NEP 2026."You can't expect it to be utilised 24X7 at a particular level. There will be more fluctuations, but given that fluctuation, if we can really use 60% of grid capacity, I think that's a fairly good thing,"

The secretary said steps are also being taken to develop chips for smart meters within the country to enhance value chain.

"Some of the developers, chip developers and also the smart meter manufacturers are actively engaged. Some chips are being already designed," he said.

Regarding coal-based electricity generation, he said demand in September rose by about 14%.

"The logistics challenges have been fully addressed...Right now we are getting something like more than 440 rakes on a daily basis," he added.