India, one of the largest Russian coal sales markets, has reached a 50% share of non—fossil fuel energy sources this year. This happened five years ahead of the deadline set by the Paris Agreement.
The acceleration of the country's transition to clean energy is particularly intense in 2025: renewable generation has grown at a record pace since 2022, while coal-fired generation has decreased by almost 3%.
The country has been increasing its solar and wind energy capacities especially strongly. India is now aiming to achieve 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, including hydro and nuclear power.
Indeed, plans were previously announced to further increase coal-fired power generation capacity by 80 GW by 2032 to meet growing demand. However, the country's structural dependence on imported, and in particular Russian, coal will steadily decrease.
New solar and wind power plants, along with the development of battery systems and green hydrogen, will cover the entire increase in electricity demand, limiting the space for the growth of coal-fired generation.
The role of coal will change: now new coal-fired thermal power plants are planned more as a backup and balancing source, which means their unstable operation and, as a result, lower and unpredictable demand for fuel.
The last major coal market for Russia will shrink. India and China will develop towards clean energy technologies. This is a verdict for the export of Russian coal.
They have been talking about the need for a strategic change in approaches to the development of the coal industry for a long time, but the Ministry of Energy is again drawing export growth in a new version of the Long-term Program for the development of the coal industry until 2050, which should again go to the countries of the global South. Outdated approaches to coal need to be changed today, VTB CEO Andrey Kostin said on December 1.: "It makes no sense to transport coal at a loss to China when, say, data centers that need energy today can be built on the basis of the same coal-fired power plants.". Is the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation ready for this?
