India’s electricity demand grows at night: Managing rising cooling demand

Power consumption in India is on the rise amid economic and population growth, as well as the growing use of air conditioning as more households purchase units and temperatures increase. Since 2019, the country’s electricity demand has increased by 5% per year. While electricity supply has kept pace, solar PV has accounted for two-thirds of power capacity additions in India since 2019. Against this backdrop, ensuring adequate power generation capacity during periods of peak demand is emerging as a key electricity security issue – particularly at night, when electricity demand for cooling has been growing and the country’s solar PV capacity cannot contribute.

The dual challenge of meeting electricity demand as populations, incomes and temperatures rise, while also ensuring the stability and resilience of grids, has been highlighted by conditions in recent days. Northwest and Central India have sweltered under an extreme heatwave since mid-May, with daytime maximum temperatures in the range of 40-47 °C and some locations recording temperatures as high as 48 °C. This has driven electricity demand to record highs, with peak demand reaching 270 gigawatts (GW) on 21 May. For comparison, in 2019, peak power demand reached around 180 GW – meaning that the increase over the past seven years alone is more than France’s peak power demand today. And while India’s summer peak is typically reached during the day, demand rises sharply again at night as people turn on air conditioners.

Climate change and the local warming effects of concrete and asphalt in cities (or what is known as the urban heat island effect) are exacerbating the challenge of meeting growing peak demand in India. Average and extreme temperatures are increasing across the country – but nighttime temperatures are rising twice as fast as daytime temperatures. The countrywide effects of climate change are reinforced in cities by the urban heat island effect, which disproportionately raises nighttime temperatures. For comparison, the hottest nighttime temperatures experienced by people in India are on average around 2 degrees hotter than in Texas and nearly 8 degrees hotter than in California.

Access to cooling in India is still not universal, with around one in five households owning an air conditioning unit. Yet by 2035, based on today’s policy settings, the IEA projects that cooling demand in India will more than double as incomes rise and temperatures increase.

Cooling already accounts for slightly more than 10% of India’s total annual electricity demand. However, air conditioners represent a much higher share of electricity demand on hot summer nights, when they can drive as much as one-third of power consumption.

India benefits from some of the best conditions globally for generating solar power, and capacity has been expanding rapidly to help meet rising electricity demand. In 2025, India added a record 50 GW of solar PV, which has helped to meet rising power consumption. On 21 May, renewables contributed about one-quarter of the electricity that met peak demand.

However, system planners also need to ensure that enough resources are available to meet power demand at times when it is high but output from renewables is low. This is known as “peak net load”, and it is a critical metric for electricity security in systems with sizeable shares of weather-dependent renewables.

India’s summer peak net load typically occurs around 8 p.m., and it declines slowly through the early hours of the morning. In India, net load at 4 a.m. is only 10% lower on average than the peak, while in California, for example, it is on average around 30% lower. For India’s electricity system operators, a line from a famous Bollywood song summarises the key challenge: raat baki, the night is still to come. India’s power system has to meet a high level of demand throughout summer nights, when solar is not available.

In recent years, India’s electricity system has performed remarkably well amid rapidly rising peak demand and the impacts of extreme temperatures. Solar PV’s strong growth has played a role, contributing substantially to meeting the peak while saving coal and optimising hydropower resources. Investments in integrating the different electricity markets across the vast country are also paying dividends.

However, the challenge of meeting the rises in demand at night is increasingly pressing. On May 21, total dispatchable capacity, which can be turned up and down to meet variations in demand, saw a peak power output of 90% of available capacity. This highlights the tight margins under which the system is currently operating, with very little spare capacity to deal with unexpected spikes in demand or power plant outages.

It is sometimes stated that because demand remains high throughout the night, batteries cannot contribute economically to meeting it due to the short storage duration of today’s batteries. But batteries can help to shave peak demand down and reduce the rate at which coal plants must ramp up. In addition, more long-duration batteries are coming to market, and portfolios of short-duration batteries can cover longer intervals. In California, portfolios of battery storage meet on average around one-quarter of net load throughout the night and maintain high levels of output for more than seven hours. Most importantly, battery storage can be built relatively quickly (median construction times are around 275 days for utility-scale batteries), and the capacity challenge in India is urgent.

India is also investing in conventional and pumped-storage hydropower, but social, ecological and hydrological factors are limiting the potential and speed of development. Deploying greater amounts of wind power can also help, although wind speeds are generally lower during the summer months.

Theoretically, natural gas power plants are well-suited to meeting seasonal jumps in demand because of their low capital costs. However, global perceptions of the security of natural gas supplies are shifting following recent crises, and the market for natural gas turbines is highly constrained, with prices for turbines surging amid high demand. Even if India were to decide to invest in more natural gas power, it would not come online quickly.

On 21 May, India’s coal power fleet provided 45 GW of ramping flexibility, reducing its output at midday to accommodate solar PV and increasing it in the evening as solar PV generation faded. The coal fleet achieved a maximum power output of nearly 92% of available capacity, proving critical to meet the nighttime jump in demand. As it increasingly plays a role in system flexibility and capacity adequacy, the use of coal as a baseload power source – one with high and constant output – is receding in India. As a result, emissions from coal are set to rise more slowly than coal power capacity additions. Around 40 GW of new coal capacity is currently under construction.

Continued implementation of stringent air conditioner efficiency standards and building efficiency codes in India – along with measures that support behavioural changes, such as those promoted by the Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) programme – will be important, too. IEA analysis indicates that these kinds of interventions could reduce peak demand growth in India by as much as one-quarter over the medium term. 

India’s electricity system planning is also subject to several uncertainties. These include the possible impact of increasing extreme temperatures on the timing and scale of cooling demand, and on energy asset performance and availability; the growth rate of air conditioner sales, and when and how households use them; and the outlook for deploying technologies such as batteries and long-duration storage.

For India, an integrated approach – one that considers demand, supply and the resilience of the electricity system to a changing climate – is critical. IEA analysis highlights that the effects of extreme temperatures on demand, supply and asset availability could significantly erode reserve margins in power systems around the world. For this reason, the IEA has invested significant resources in integrating its modelling capacities across each of these domains and stands ready to extend and deepen its cooperation with Indian institutions on this important challenge.