Clean energy transition: Bridging innovation and commercial scale, say industry leaders
Synopsis
India's clean energy experts aren't short of ideas — they're short of deployment. At the Think Change Forum in New Delhi, senior voices from ISA and TERI argued that the real bottleneck is not inventing new technologies but getting proven ones out of evaluation limbo and into commercial markets at scale, a gap that threatens India's 500 GW clean energy target by 2030.
Key Takeaways
Industry leaders at the Think Change Forum , New Delhi , said the biggest clean energy challenge is scaling proven technologies, not developing new ones.
Ajay Mathur , former Director General of the International Solar Alliance , warned that over-extending evaluation phases delays commercial deployment of mature technologies.
AK Saxena , Senior Director at TERI , identified inadequate investment, policy bottlenecks, and lack of commercial confidence as key reasons promising technologies stall before adoption.
The forum focused on identifying ways to accelerate the transition from innovation to widespread market adoption in the clean energy sector.
The deployment gap poses a systemic risk to India's target of 500 GW non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030 .
Industry leaders on Wednesday called for a decisive shift in focus — from evaluating new energy technologies to deploying them at commercial scale — arguing that the most pressing barrier to a successful clean energy transition is not a lack of innovation but the persistent gap between proven solutions and widespread market adoption. The remarks were made at the Think Change Forum in New Delhi, themed 'New Energy: Taking It from Evaluation to Adoption'.
The Core Argument: Stop Over-Evaluating Mature Technologies
Dr. Ajay Mathur, former Director General of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), said that while rigorous evaluation is essential during a technology's development phase, the calculus must change once a technology has matured and demonstrated cost-effectiveness. He cautioned that prolonging the evaluation stage for proven technologies serves as an unnecessary brake on deployment.
'It is equally important to continue assessing emerging technologies while ensuring that mature solutions reach the market as early as possible,' Dr. Mathur said. He noted that large-scale deployment of commercially viable technologies should now be the sector's primary priority, and that forums of this nature can surface actionable insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and technology developers alike.
Why Promising Technologies Stall Before Adoption
AK Saxena, Senior Director at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), highlighted a recurring pattern: many technologies that show strong potential during trials never make it to the adoption stage. He identified the main culprits as inadequate investment, policy bottlenecks, a deficit of commercial confidence, and technologies that are not yet fully proven at scale.
Saxena said the central challenge is building a reliable bridge between the innovation pipeline and commercial-scale deployment. He added that forum discussions centred on identifying concrete ways to dismantle these barriers and hasten the journey from laboratory or pilot stage to mainstream market presence.
The Deployment Gap and What It Means for Clean Energy
The concerns raised at the forum reflect a broader structural tension in India's energy transition: the country has made significant strides in renewable energy capacity addition — particularly in solar — yet several next-generation technologies, including green hydrogen, advanced storage, and offshore wind, remain stuck in extended evaluation cycles despite demonstrable global precedents.
This comes amid growing urgency around India's climate commitments and its stated goal of achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030. Notably, the gap between technology readiness and commercial rollout has been flagged repeatedly by energy analysts as a systemic risk to meeting those targets on schedule.
Path Forward: Policy, Investment, and Market Confidence
Both speakers converged on the view that overcoming the innovation-to-adoption gap requires a coordinated response — combining clearer policy signals, targeted investment instruments, and mechanisms that build commercial confidence among private players. Without these enablers, even well-proven technologies risk sitting on the shelf while deployment windows narrow.
The Think Change Forum is expected to channel its findings into recommendations for policymakers and industry bodies working on India's clean energy roadmap. Whether those recommendations translate into concrete action will determine how quickly the country can move the needle on its energy transition goals.
Point of View
But not new — India's energy transition has long been diagnosed with a deployment deficit, not an innovation one. What's missing is a frank reckoning with why the bridge between evaluation and adoption keeps collapsing: risk-averse procurement frameworks, inconsistent policy tenure, and a financial system that still prices clean energy projects as speculative. Dr. Mathur and Saxena are right that over-evaluation is a trap, but forum consensus alone won't spring it. The harder question — which sectors and which instruments will absorb deployment risk at scale — remains unanswered, and until it is, the gap they described will persist regardless of how many panels discuss it.
NationPress
6 Aug 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the key message from the Think Change Forum on new energy?
Industry leaders said the primary challenge for India's clean energy transition is not a lack of new technologies but the failure to deploy proven, cost-effective technologies at commercial scale. They called for a shift in focus from evaluation to large-scale market adoption.
Who are Dr. Ajay Mathur and AK Saxena?
Dr. Ajay Mathur is the former Director General of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), a key multilateral body promoting solar energy globally. AK Saxena is Senior Director at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), one of India's leading energy and environment research organisations.
Why do promising clean energy technologies fail to reach the market?
According to AK Saxena of TERI, the main reasons are inadequate investment, policy bottlenecks, a lack of commercial confidence among private players, and technologies not yet being fully proven at scale. These factors collectively prevent otherwise viable technologies from crossing into mainstream adoption.
How does this issue affect India's clean energy targets?
India has committed to achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030. A persistent gap between technology readiness and commercial deployment is widely seen as a systemic risk to meeting that target on schedule, particularly for next-generation solutions like green hydrogen and advanced storage.
What solutions did the forum propose?
Speakers at the Think Change Forum pointed to the need for clearer policy signals, targeted investment instruments, and mechanisms to build commercial confidence among private players. The forum's findings are expected to feed into recommendations for policymakers and industry bodies working on India's clean energy roadmap.
