Budget
India's nuclear energy ambitions: Aiming for 100 GW by 2047
Summary
- Budget 2025 aims for a 12-fold expansion in India’s nuclear capacity by 2047, with a thrust on smaller reactors. In that respect, India is following what is happening elsewhere in the world, notably China.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has committed to developing at least 100 GW of nuclear energy by 2047. In her Union budget for 2025-26, she also proposed setting up a Nuclear Energy Mission with an outlay of ₹20,000 crore. The mission will focus on research and development of small modular reactors (SMRs), with an aim to have at least five homegrown SMRs running by 2033. Small modular reactors are small nuclear fission reactors that can be manufactured in factories and then installed elsewhere, and are typically of a smaller capacity than conventional nuclear reactors.
Currently, nuclear plants account for 1.8% of India’s installed power capacity of 462 gigawatt (GW). Much of the policy focus in recent years has been on renewable energy, which has grown due to tax and other incentives.
Nuclear power generation in India took off after the mid-1970s. The next phase of growth came with the signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008. This led to the US relaxing its nuclear fuel and technology sanctions against India in exchange for Indian civilian reactors being placed under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.
Globally, nuclear energy fell out of favour after the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011. However, according to a January 2025 report by the International Energy Agency, there has been a renewed interest in building new nuclear plants and extending the lifetimes of existing ones. “2025 is set to see generation from nuclear plants reaching an all-time high. This is being driven by energy security concerns, a strengthening of policy support, technological advances, and growing needs for dispatchable low-emissions power," the report said. These are the reasons driving India’s expansion in nuclear energy.
Developed play
According to the IEA, nuclear power generates 10% of global electricity. As a source of clean fuel, it is seen as key to meeting global emissions targets. The IEA report says that 63 nuclear reactors are currently under construction across the world, representing 70 GW of capacity. Much of this expansion is based on Russian and Chinese technology, and half of such construction is being undertaken in China.
At present, the bulk of nuclear power is generated in advanced economies. France is the world leader, with nuclear power meeting 65% of its energy needs in 2023. However, China is on track to overtake both the US and the European Union in installed capacity by 2030. The developed world, in contrast, faces an ageing of its nuclear reactors. In the EU, the share of nuclear power in the electricity mix is currently 23%, down from 34% in the 1990s.
12-fold expansion
India currently has 24 nuclear reactors across eight plants, with a total installed capacity of about 8.2 GW. In other words, the government is aiming for a 12-fold expansion by 2047. Between April and December 2024, seven plants generated 43.03 gigawatt hours of power, which is about 3% of the total power generation in India. The Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu accounted for a quarter of India's nuclear power generation in that period.
India’s nuclear fleet is a mix of technologies—boiling water reactors, pressurised heavy water reactors, and pressurised water reactors.
While the government is targeting 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047, the draft national energy policy of 2017 expects India's nuclear capacity to increase to 22.5 GW by 2030—a 2.75 times increase over the current capacity. As of December, according to IEA, India had around 6 GW capacity of nuclear reactors under construction, of which 4 GW was with Russian technology.
Going small
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are a major thrust area in nuclear technology across the globe. Much of the demand for SMRs is being driven by the growth in data centres, where such reactors are likely to be deployed. Conventional nuclear plants are capital-intensive and costly to set up. SMRs are expected to mitigate that, lowering entry barriers. “SMRs can dramatically cut the overall investment costs of individual projects to levels similar to those of large renewable energy projects such as offshore wind and large hydro," says the IEA report.
India is targeting to have five indigenously developed SMRs up and running by 2033. According to IEA, under its announced pledges scenario, which illustrates the extent to which current pledges can deliver net zero emissions by 2050, India will build out 7.7 GW of capacity via SMRs by 2050. However, that is still much less than targets set by other countries such as China.
www.howindialives.com is a database and search engine for public data
