India needs to mobilise $500 billion a year to meet Net Zero ambition: Global Energy Alliance

India, to meet it’s ambition of Net Zero by 2070, needs to mobilise about $22 trillion or about $500 billion a year, said Agnes Dasewicz, Chief Investment and Programme Officer, Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, in an interview. 

“You will never be able to do that without really aligning government, private finance and philanthropy, because you need all of them to grow in the same direction in order to achieve that kind of ambition,” she said.

Elaborating on how to mobilise such funds, Woochong Um, CEO, Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet said, “Money is out there. You hear about trillions of dollars that’s floating globally. The issue is that money’s not flowing to all the right places, including India.”

“To get that money the government has to work very closely with the multilaterals to set the enabling environment in terms of regulatory system,” he emphasised.

“At the same time, someone’s got to develop projects. So, there are a lot of projects that are out there as a blueprint, but they’re not invested yet because they don’t have enough information about the technical details, viability, and all that stuff. So, doing the due diligence to bring it up from project concept to the bankable stage, that’s going to enable people to invest,” he pointed out.

He said different types of money, like the philanthropy and the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and government and private sector, are not necessarily aligned and are not leveraging each other. 

“So, we’re trying to create the proof of concept so that it leads to some sort of scalable, investable project. Ultimately, we are trying to go from philanthropy billions, to MDB billions, which will help leverage trillions of dollars from the private sector, ultimately, including the sovereign wealth fund and all those money that they need to invest somewhere,” Mr. Um said. 

According to Ms. Dasewicz, bulk of that money has to come from the private sector. 

“And the private sector needs certain conditions to be in play, either at the project level or at the systems level, in order for them to engage. Here in India, you have very vibrant and large capital markets,” she said.

She said utilities must be made much more bankable and profitable so that they would attract investment.

“Because in the end, you really need the private sector for sustainability. Because grants come and go,” she emphasised. According to Mr. Um events like Mumbai Climate Week are really important.

“Because it brings different players together so that we can discuss and understand each other’s pain points and see how we can support each other and invest collectively better than all doing in parallel without proper coordination across,” Mr. Um said. 

At Mumbai Climate Week 2026 on Tuesday, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet launched the India Grids of the Future Accelerator, a national platform through which the Alliance will deploy up to $25 million to modernise power distribution, integrate renewable energy and storage, and prepare India’s grids for rapid demand growth.

 The Alliance signed Memoranda of Understanding with distribution companies (DISCOMs) in Delhi and Rajasthan, designating them as the first cohort of “Champion Utilities” under the Grids of the Future initiative, and with All India DISCOM Association (AIDA).

Having helped drive near-universal electricity access, India now faces a new challenge: moving from connections to energy abundance. 

The Alliance’s initiative is designed as a globally coordinated, locally delivered platform that will bring together governments, utilities, financiers, innovators, and technical partners to modernize power systems across the Global South. 

By 2030, the India Grids of the Future Accelerator will advance grid transformation through its D4 framework; driving digitalization (D1) of utilities through digital twins and advanced analytics, enabling smarter integration of distributed energy resources (D2), accelerating the democratization (D3) of electricity by empowering consumers to participate in the energy system, and advancing the development (D4) of a strong innovation ecosystem to scale future-ready solutions. 

Through this integrated approach, the initiative aims to support 15 or more utilities, positively impacting nearly 300 million people across India. 

The Accelerator will onboard an initial cohort of utilities for early implementation, convene government partners, technology providers, investors, and philanthropic funders into a delivery-focused coalition, and build toward a three-year, $100 million fundraising effort from 2026 to 2028 to unlock large-scale public and private investment. 

Mr. Um said “India’s clean energy transition is entering a decisive new phase, one defined not by access alone, but by the ability of power systems to deliver reliability, flexibility, and scale.”

“Through the India Grids of the Future Accelerator, we are working hand-in-hand with utilities to build the digital, financial, and institutional capacity required to integrate renewables and storage at scale,” he added.

The event also marked the launch of ENTICE 3.0 the latest edition of the Alliance’s flagship Energy Transitions Innovation Challenge. This edition places a particular focus on energy storage and grid digitalization, including the documentation of non-lithium storage solutions and innovations capable of rapidly digitising large volume of grid assets to support faster planning, operations, and renewable energy integration. 

By directly connecting innovators with utilities, policymakers, and capital providers, ENTICE 3.0 aims to move promising technologies from pilots to large-scale deployment, the Alliance said.