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Coal will continue to play a central role in India’s energy mix as the country works towards tripling its per capita energy consumption over the next 20 years, Union Coal Secretary Vikram Dev Dutt said on Thursday.
He was speaking during a panel discussion on the third day of India Energy Week 2026.
“Coal is not going away in a hurry. For India, affordable and dependable baseload power is not a choice; it is an imperative. The mantra is not ‘phase out’, it is ‘phase down’ in calibrated steps that reflect ground realities,” he said. Dutt added that coal underpins India’s development needs and will continue to do so even as renewables scale up alongside climate commitments.
According to the Economic Survey 2025–26, coal plays an important role in India’s energy landscape, contributing 55 per cent to the national energy mix and fuelling over 74 per cent of total power generation. India’s total installed power generation capacity currently stands at nearly 514 gigawatts (GW), comprising about 247 GW of thermal capacity. Annual per capita energy consumption currently stands at 1,460 kWh and is expected to increase to 2,000 kWh by 2030 and over 4,000 kWh by 2047.
Highlighting the global perspective, Kyle Haustveit, Assistant Secretary for Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, emphasised that coal remains critical for energy security worldwide.
“Coal powered the modern world and it is not going away. Reliable, affordable and secure energy matters, and coal provides that stability, regardless of weather or market volatility,” he said. He highlighted the strong potential for India–US collaboration in clean coal technologies, coal gasification, carbon utilisation, and trade in high-quality metallurgical coal.
Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Coal India Limited, B. Sairam, said coal will act as a bridge and enabler in India’s transition. “India’s per capita energy consumption is barely a third of that in developed economies. As this demand triples, coal will provide firm, dispatchable power while renewables and storage mature,” he said.
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