India saw electricity demand surge to an all-time high of 270.8 GW this summer amid intensifying El Nino conditions. The Parliament was told on Monday that electricity supply had largely kept pace with demand — adding that the country had “adequate availability of power”. The Ministry, however, flagged localised gaps persisted due to bottlenecks in state transmission and distribution networks.
Union Minister of State Shripad Naik noted that a midterm review of the Electric Power Survey data projected India’s peak demand for FY27 at 289 GW. This demand can easily be met by the 548.86 GW of installed capacity operational as of June, he said.
Surging demand amid El Nino conditions
The Union Minister noted that electricity requirements had surged during the summer months as El Nino conditions deepened. According to the Power Ministry, the overall rise in electricity peak demand was around 12% when compared against the corresponding period last year. The all-time high peak demand of 270.8 GW was met in the month of May.
“The ‘energy supplied’ has been commensurate with the ‘energy requirement’ with only a marginal gap which is generally on account of constraints in the state transmission or distribution network,” the Centre told Parliament.
Government flags grid bottlenecks
The Centre said that it had taken several steps to modernise the power grid and reduce transmission losses. It flagged a “marginal gap” in supply — attributing it to state-level transmission and distribution network constraints rather than a shortage of generation capacity.
Naik said steps taken to minimise transmission losses including expansion and augmentation of the current network as well as the adoption of a higher voltage system. He also flagged “Reactive power management and better operational practices to improve voltage profile and reduce losses” and “modernisation of the transmission system” as steps taken by the administration.
“The Ministry of Power has issued guidelines dated 14.06.2024, 21.03.2025 and 15.12.2025 regarding the payment of compensation for Right of Way (RoW) for transmission lines, wherein the land rate has been linked to the prevailing market rate. These guidelines address the key challenges of RoW arising from landowners demanding higher compensation than the rates determined by the State Government,” he added.
Coal leads power supply
Coal has remained the backbone of energy supply in India — accounting for nearly 79% of the total energy supplied domestically in FY25. Production grew by 4.98% during the same year to reach 1047.52 million tonnes. Non-coking coal retains a dominant share at around 93.65% of the total production during FY25.
According to government data, the share of thermal generation has varied from 68.3% to 72.7% between April and June this year. Coal makes up a majority of this figure — with lignite, natural gas and diesel rounding out the segment. A little more than 3% of generated electricity came from nuclear energy every month, while renewable sources formed up to 28.11% of the power output.
Source-wise fuel generation from April to June 2026:
Privatisation of electricity distribution
Naik also fielded separate questions from Rajya Sabha MPs about the privatisation of electricity distribution — especially in smart cities and the national capital region. He noted that the privatisation of a state –owned distribution company came under the purview of the respective relevant state government since electricity was a concurrent topic.
The MoS also highlighted modern technologies adopted by private distribution utilities — improving energy accounting, grid monitoring, fault detection and service reliability.
“With concerted efforts of the Central and State Governments and as a result of various reform measures undertaken, there has been a reduction in overall transmission and distribution losses. AT&C losses across the country have reduced from 21.91% in FY21 to 15.04% in FY25,” he added.