- A BRIDGE TO DECARBONISE ENERGY SYSTEM -

India’s power sector today stands at an inflection point. With an installed generation capacity of over 520 GW as of January 2026, the country has emerged as one of the world’s largest electricity systems. Coal-based thermal power continues to account for nearly 220 GW and remains the backbone of reliable baseload and dispatchable power. At the same time, India’s demand trajectory continues to accelerate, with electricity generation already crossing 1,845 billion units in FY 2025–26 and long-term peak demand projected to touch nearly 459 GW by 2035–36. This scale of growth makes thermal power indispensable in the medium term. However, the nature of thermal power’s role is undergoing a profound transformation.

India’s clean energy ambitions are now reshaping grid operations at an unprecedented pace. The country has already achieved over 283 GW of non-fossil installed capacity, crossing the milestone of 50 percent cumulative installed capacity from non-fossil sources ahead of its 2030 target. Solar and wind are increasingly altering daily dispatch patterns, especially during high solar generation periods when thermal stations are forced to reduce output significantly. As renewable penetration rises further, the challenge is no longer only about adding green capacity—it is about creating a power system that can absorb variable energy while ensuring round-the-clock reliability. Flexible thermal power plants are therefore becoming the bridge between India’s renewable ambition and grid security.

This is precisely why thermal flexibilisation has become a national policy priority. The Central Electricity Authority has already laid out a roadmap for coal-based thermal plants to progressively operate at 40 percent minimum technical load by 2030, supported by improved ramping requirements, digital controls, and operational protocols. Recent studies and committee assessments have further reinforced that flexible operation is technically feasible, but it requires structured retrofits, better operator preparedness, and commercial mechanisms to compensate for cycling-related wear and tear. The future of India’s thermal fleet will depend on how effectively plants can adapt from traditional baseload stations into agile balancing assets.

However, thermal flexibility in India today must be viewed in the context of multiple converging policy priorities. One of the most significant is biomass co-firing. The Ministry of Power has already mandated biomass pellet co-firing in coal-based thermal plants, starting with 5 percent blending from FY 2024–25 and increasing to 7 percent from FY 2025–26. This policy is not only aimed at reducing emissions, but also at addressing crop residue burning, improving rural income, and promoting circular economy solutions. As of December 2025, more than 72 thermal power plants had already started biomass co-firing, with over 40 lakh metric tonnes of biomass consumed. This demonstrates that thermal plants are no longer just conventional fossil assets; they are increasingly becoming platforms for cleaner fuel integration and environmental co-benefits.

In parallel, India is also beginning to integrate municipal solid waste-derived torrefied fuel and alternative low-carbon fuels into coal plants. This marks an important policy shift toward diversified fuel strategies and resource circularity. Such interventions are expected to play a critical role in lowering emissions intensity while improving fuel resilience. For thermal plants, this means that operational flexibility must now include not just load flexibility, but also fuel flexibility. Flexible Operation of Thermal Plants 2026 shall therefore address how plants can manage combustion dynamics, boiler performance, ash characteristics, emissions control systems, and supply chain readiness in an era of blended fuel operations.

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and pumped hydro storage are also becoming key pillars of India’s power transition. India’s generation adequacy plans now envisage massive storage additions over the next decade to manage renewable intermittency and support peak balancing. However, storage deployment at scale will take time, and even as storage grows, thermal plants will remain critical for system inertia, spinning reserves, and reliability during prolonged renewable variability. The future power system will not be built on storage alone; it will depend on hybrid coordination between renewables, storage, hydro, and flexible thermal generation. This makes the discussion around coal-plus-storage integration, thermal-BESS hybrid dispatch, and coordinated ancillary services especially relevant for this year’s Flexible Operation of Thermal Plants 2026.

Another critical emerging policy area is green hydrogen and low-carbon industrial decarbonisation. India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission is creating a pathway for large-scale green hydrogen production and industrial usage, especially in refining, fertilisers, steel, and hard-to-abate sectors. While hydrogen integration into thermal power generation is still at a nascent stage, it represents an important future pathway for coal fleet decarbonisation, combustion innovation, and blended fuel trials. Over the next decade, thermal plants may increasingly need to explore hydrogen-readiness, flexible burner technologies, carbon intensity reduction measures, and hybrid renewable-linked hydrogen ecosystems. Flexible Operation of Thermal Plants 2026 presents an ideal platform to begin that conversation and prepare thermal stakeholders for the next wave of technological transition.

The significance of Flexible Operation of Thermal Plants 2026 lies in the fact that India is now moving beyond policy intent into the execution phase of power sector transformation. Over the last two editions, the platform successfully helped establish the importance of flexibility and created awareness around operational challenges. This year, the industry needs to move decisively toward actionable solutions. The sector requires clarity on plant retrofits, digital optimisation, advanced process control systems, boiler-turbine stress management, emissions compliance under cycling conditions, commercial compensation frameworks, biomass supply chain readiness, storage coordination, and future low-carbon pathways.

This edition must therefore position itself not merely as a technical event, but as India’s flagship strategic platform on the future role of thermal power in a renewable-led grid. It should bring together policymakers, regulators, utilities, generators, load dispatch centres, technology providers, storage developers, fuel innovators, and plant operators to create a shared roadmap for the next decade. Flexible Operation of Thermal Plants 2026 shall help redefine the thermal plant of the future: not as a legacy asset, but as a flexible, cleaner, digitally enabled, and commercially resilient cornerstone of India’s energy transition.

The awards segment will further strengthen this mission by recognising plants and organisations that are leading in low-load operations, ramping excellence, biomass co-firing, emissions-compliant flexibility, storage integration, digital innovation, and operational resilience. Such recognition is essential because India’s energy transition will ultimately be delivered not only by national targets and policy announcements, but by the day-to-day innovation and performance of engineers, plant teams, and utilities across the country.

India’s power future will be determined not only by how much renewable capacity it adds, but by how intelligently it integrates all available resources into one resilient system. Flexible thermal power is no longer just a balancing requirement—it is the foundation on which India’s reliable, affordable, and sustainable power future will be built. Flexible Operation of Thermal Plants 2026 is therefore both timely and essential, and has the potential to become the defining industry platform that shapes the next chapter of India’s power sector transformation.