The past decade saw an exponential growth in renewable capacity in India. A landmark 300 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity was achieved in August, accounting for more than 54% of the country’s total installed generation capacity. Solar has grown from 2.8 GW in 2014 to approximately 165 GW, and the country added a record 55.29 GW of non-fossil capacity in the last financial year alone. Getting to this point did not happen by default and required sustained policy support, from PLI schemes for domestic solar manufacturing to bidding reforms, plus years of capital deployment by both public and private developers.

The capacity-addition challenge, however demanding, is at least a known one. It responds fairly predictably to capital, land availability, and regulatory clearance, and India has by now built considerable institutional muscle in solving for exactly these variables.

The harder, less settled task lies downstream: ensuring that generation, and increasingly, variable renewable output, actually reaches consumers as a reliable and affordable supply. Distribution companies (discoms) sit at the centre of that task. To effectively support renewable energy integration and ensure it turns into reliable power, economic growth, and energy security, a utility first needs to see its network as it runs.

The lack of this visibility is one of the reasons discoms have long been the weakest financial link in India’s power sector. Tariffs remain politically hard to set at cost-reflective levels, aggregate technical and commercial........

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