The impact of the West Asia crisis on India would have been more severe than the rest of the world had the country not made investments in renewable energy over the last decade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the inauguration of the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit & Expo (2026) in New Delhi Monday (November 2, 2026).
The Prime Minister put forth that the West Asia crisis exemplified how energy security was directly tied to economic security, adding that the future of energy security rested in clean energy. Mr. Modi also said that India’s renewable energy sector would have investment opportunities of about $220 billion by the end of the decade.
“Had India not made the investments it did in clean energy and building the requisite mechanisms [and infrastructure], the impact of the crisis would have been far more severe than in the rest of the world,” Mr. Modi said in his address. He also said that India’s economy continued to grow despite the crisis.
In his pitch to potential investors, Mr. Modi held that it would be difficult to find the scale, scope and demand that India has in any other part of the world, alongside political and policy stability. This would help save them a lot of money.
He said that about 44,000 government buildings in India are currently powered by solar energy, which has resulted in annual saving of a total of about ₹700 crore.
Explaining his vision, the Prime Minister said, “We must carve out a dynamic where the country’s middle class has the option of an electric vehicle, and where they would be able to charge their scooty, bike, or car with solar-based energy. “We must not stop here; we must connect every government building, school, college, hospital, and the entire street lighting network to solar energy and at a rapid pace,” he said.
