PM Modi Says Clean Energy Investments Softened West Asia Crisis Impact

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India’s investments in renewable energy, clean-energy infrastructure and related mechanisms reduced the impact of the West Asia crisis on the country.

Addressing the inauguration of the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit & Expo (2026) in New Delhi Monday (November 2, 2026), Mr. Modi said the crisis would have affected India more severely than the rest of the world without those investments.

“Had India not made the investments it did in clean energy and building the requisite mechanisms [and infrastructure], the impact of the crisis would have been far more severe than in the rest of the world,” Mr. Modi said in his address.

He also said that India’s economy continued to grow despite the crisis.

Energy security and economic security

Mr. Modi said the West Asia crisis showed that energy security was directly tied to economic security.

He added that the future of energy security rested in clean energy and warned that excessive dependence on fossil fuels could increase exposure to global disruptions.

The Prime Minister said India’s renewable energy sector would offer investment opportunities of about $220 billion by the end of the decade.

Addressing potential investors, he said it would be difficult to find the scale, scope and demand available in India in any other part of the world, along with the country’s political and policy stability.

The remarks linked India’s renewable energy expansion with both protection from global disruptions and the creation of opportunities for investment.

Solar manufacturing and storage

Mr. Modi said the next phase of the solar revolution would depend on innovation.

He pointed to opportunities in the indigenous manufacturing of essential hardware and battery storage systems, as well as in enhancing capacities.

He said India’s solar module manufacturing capacity had grown from 2 gigawatts (GW) to 200 GW in a decade.

The capacity to manufacture solar cells had also grown to about 40 GW, Mr. Modi said.

“Now we are working on enhancing [indigenous] manufacturing of other components as well,” he said.

The focus on components, storage systems and manufacturing capacity formed part of the Prime Minister’s argument that India’s renewable energy sector still had room for further expansion.

Solar power for transport and farming

Mr. Modi said India needed to create conditions in which the middle class had the option of using an electric vehicle and could charge a scooty, bike or car with solar-based energy.

“We must carve out a dynamic where the country’s middle class has the option of an electric vehicle, and where they would be able to charge their scooty, bike, or car with solar-based energy. This would help save them a lot of money,” he said.

He also said the country would require solutions to encourage solar adoption in the dairy sector, animal husbandry and farming.

This placed the proposed expansion of solar energy beyond manufacturing and infrastructure, with the Prime Minister also referring to transport, agriculture and related rural activities.

Government buildings and local competition

Mr. Modi said India was striving to achieve a great deal in a very short span of time.

“We must not stop here; we must connect every government building, school, college, hospital, and the entire street lighting network to solar energy and at a rapid pace,” he said.

He further suggested that States and local bodies should have healthy competition over their performance in renewable energy adoption.

According to Mr. Modi, such competition would create an incentive for top performers and encourage others to follow.

About 44,000 government buildings in India are currently powered by solar energy, he said.

This has resulted in annual savings of a total of about ₹700 crore, according to the Prime Minister.

Source: The Hindu