India's "Overtaking on the Curve": How Affordable Green Technology is Reshaping the Energy Pathways of Emerging Economies
24/01/2026
In 2024, for every 20 new cars sold in India, one is electric. This figure alone may not be remarkable, but when viewed within a broader historical context, its significance becomes entirely different. According to a recent report by the energy think tank Ember, when India's per capita income (adjusted for purchasing power parity) reaches approximately $11,000—roughly equivalent to China's level in 2012—its pace of electrification is faster, and its per capita fossil fuel consumption is far lower than China's at the same stage of development. This finding is quietly challenging a deeply entrenched belief in the fields of international energy and development: that late-developing countries must inevitably follow the old path of "pollute first, clean up later," as taken by the West and China.
This completely overturns the orthodox narrative that emerging markets must follow the path taken by the West and China: transitioning from biomass to fossil fuels, and then to clean energy. This is according to Kingsmill Bond, a strategist at Ember and one of the authors of the report. Behind his assertion lies a series of meticulously compared data and an ongoing global structural shift. What India is writing may be an entirely new development script, with its core drivers being the now exceptionally cheap solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles.
The New Narrative Behind the Data: When India Meets "Affordable Green Electricity"
Comparing two economies from different historical periods requires establishing a fair benchmark. The essence of the Ember report lies in its methodology: by adjusting GDP based on purchasing power parity, India's current per capita income of approximately $11,000 is placed on the same development level as China in 2012. Within this comparable framework, the differences become clearly visible.
At a similar stage of development, India's per capita coal and oil consumption was only a small fraction of China's at that time. Even in absolute terms, India's current growth rate of fossil fuel consumption is slower than China's today. A more concrete indicator comes from the transportation sector: in 2024, electric vehicles accounted for 5% of new car sales in India. When China reached this electrification milestone at a comparable stage of development, its per capita road transport oil consumption was about 60% higher than India's now. Based on this analysis, India's per capita road transport oil demand may never reach China's peak level.
The root of this disparity lies not in India adopting more aggressive environmental policies, but in the technological dividends afforded by the era. A decade ago, when China began large-scale deployment of solar energy and electric vehicles, these technologies were costly and truly considered luxuries. Through unprecedented investment and mass production, China steeply drove down the cost curves of modular technologies such as photovoltaic modules and lithium batteries. Today, as India enters the scene, it faces a green technology market that has been transformed by China and is significantly more affordable.
This means that there is a possibility of skipping stages in the development path. Latecomer countries no longer need to undergo the long-term lock-in of fossil fuel infrastructure and can directly utilize more economical clean energy technologies to meet the energy demands of economic growth. For countries like India, which have limited domestic fossil fuel reserves, this is not only an environmentally friendly choice but also a profound economic and security issue.
Economic Logic Takes Priority: Energy Independence Drives Electrification Transition
To understand the electrification wave in India and even China, one must move beyond the simplistic climate narrative. The Ember report clearly states that the primary driving force behind the electrification push in both countries is not for emission reduction or achieving climate goals, but solid economic logic. For India, this logic is particularly urgent.
According to data from the International Energy Agency, over 40% of India's primary energy relies on imports, including coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuel imports worth up to 150 billion dollars annually constitute a significant fiscal burden and energy security risk. To achieve growth and energy independence, India needs to alleviate the daunting burden of 150 billion dollars in fossil fuel imports each year. Bond points out that India must find alternative solutions.
Therefore, India's energy transition is essentially a national action seeking energy independence. Vigorously developing domestic renewable energy manufacturing and deployment, and reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels, are its core strategic considerations. The emergence of cheap green technologies has provided unprecedented feasibility for this strategy. Solar and wind power enable India to generate electricity using domestic resources (sunlight and wind), while electric vehicles can reduce dependence on imported oil. Electrification has transformed from an environmental vision into a practical tool concerning national economic sovereignty and strategic autonomy.
This economically-driven transformation may prove more resilient and sustainable than purely climate-focused goals. It is rooted in the pursuit of national core interests, rather than commitments vulnerable to shifts in international political winds. This also explains why the Indian government, while vigorously expanding renewable energy, is still considering a controversial plan: to double coal power capacity by 2047. Ensuring baseload power supply and meeting the demands of rapid economic growth remain the cornerstones of its energy policy. However, the key distinction is that, due to the availability of cheap clean electricity, a larger portion of new energy demand can be directly met by renewables, thereby curbing the overall upward trajectory of per capita fossil fuel consumption.
The Rise of the "Electrified Nations" and China's "Sweet Troubles"
Based on observations of countries like India, Bond and his team proposed the concept of an electrified nation. An electrified nation refers to an economy that meets most of its energy needs through clean energy power generation. Such countries typically lack abundant domestic fossil fuel reserves, thus having the strongest motivation to transition to electrification. Currently, no country has fully met this standard, but developing nations like India are moving in this direction.
A more revolutionary insight lies in the fact that less developed economies than India may enjoy greater latecomer advantages in the future. As the costs of solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, and their key minerals continue to decline, these countries can access affordable clean electricity at earlier stages of development. This enables them to potentially leapfrog the fossil fuel era and directly build a modern energy system centered on green power. This foreshadows a reshaping of the global energy geography.
However, a significant reality stands in the way of becoming an electrified nation: China's unrivaled dominance in manufacturing. In today's world, from batteries to solar equipment, China is the largest manufacturer of various power technologies globally. This dominance is a double-edged sword.
On one hand, it is precisely China's massive investments and large-scale production over the past decade that have significantly reduced the cost of modular green technologies, creating the prerequisite for countries like India to overtake on the curve. China has played a key role as a global cost reducer for green technologies.
On the other hand, this high level of concentration also brings supply chain risks and geopolitical bottlenecks. China has already leveraged this advantage in geopolitics, such as seeking tariff concessions in trade negotiations involving rare earth resources. A more direct technological barrier is that Chinese companies also control the critical equipment required by other countries to establish local manufacturing facilities. This month, Indian giant Reliance Industries Ltd. suspended its plan to manufacture lithium-ion battery cells domestically due to the inability to obtain necessary equipment from China. China's leadership in green technology, while driving the global transition, has also sparked deep concerns among nations regarding supply chain security and industrial autonomy.
Industrial Competition and Future Prospects in the Context of Geopolitical Changes
Global trade tensions, particularly the continuous addition of exclusion clauses by the US and Europe targeting China-related power technologies, are profoundly altering the rules of the game. Rather than hindering electrification, this has created strong incentives for countries like India to invest in local manufacturing capabilities. Barriers are giving rise to new industrial layouts.
We may be at the peak moment of China's dominance in the power technology system, as other countries around the world are beginning to wake up and realize that this is the future of energy. Bond commented. This statement highlights the dynamic nature of the current phase: an old paradigm dominated by a single country is loosening, and a new multipolar landscape of green manufacturing is taking shape.
For India, the challenge lies in successfully building domestic manufacturing capabilities without overly relying on Chinese suppliers. The case of Reliance Industries reveals the difficulties involved. However, if India can overcome constraints in equipment, technology, key minerals, and other areas, its electrification transition may actually accelerate further, driving the development of its own high-end manufacturing sector.
The global impact of this transformation is profound. If the Indian model proves successful, it will provide a replicable template for numerous emerging economies: leveraging currently inexpensive green technologies, with economic viability and energy security as core drivers, to forge a development path distinct from that of traditional industrialized nations, characterized by lower fossil fuel consumption intensity. This will have ripple effects on global carbon emission trajectories, energy trade flows, and the geopolitical landscape.
From a broader perspective, the differences in the paths of electrification between India and China reflect not only the distinct national conditions of the two countries but also the evolution of technology over time. When technology costs were high in the previous round, China leveraged state power to drive progress, taking on the roles of pioneer and cost reducer. India, on the other hand, is entering the field at a time when technology costs have significantly decreased, enjoying the benefits of late-mover technological advantages. Both paths reveal a core trend: Economic viability has become the most powerful engine for the clean energy transition, and geopolitics is reshaping the manufacturing blueprint of this engine.
In the next decade, we will witness an intense competition over manufacturing rights, standard-setting rights, and supply chain control in green power technology. Whether India can translate its leading advantage in deployment speed into solid domestic industrial competitiveness and truly lead the arrival of the era of electrified nations will be a key window for observing the global energy transition and South-South development models. The outcome of this competition will determine whether the future of clean energy belongs to a few manufacturing giants or a more diverse, resilient, and widely accessible global system. In any case, cheap green technology has already provided the world with a new possibility to break free from historical path dependence, and India is at the forefront of testing this possibility.
Reference materials
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jan/23/india-is-electrifying-faster-than-china-using-chea/