But size alone does not guarantee resilience, as the summer grid failures in Europe have shown. Maintaining and updating power grids is just as important as expanding them.
Our research also found that, contrary to entrenched belief, injecting more renewable energy into India’s power grid would increase the availability of reserves, resulting in superior reliability. This is critical as peak power demand in hot, humid Asia is outpacing average electricity growth. In fact, scaling India’s non-fossil capacity to 600 GW would yield the most reliable grid at the lowest cost.
CLEAN ENERGY HINGES ON SUPPLY CHAINS
Third, resilience must define our supply chains. The clean energy transition hinges on supply chains that are dangerously concentrated, a vulnerability which has now been exposed by geopolitical shocks and tariffs.
A critical question now is how Asian economies should distribute these supply chains, whether for products, minerals or tech. More countries are importing cleantech components, but from a small number of source countries. About 15 countries control the production and reserves of rare earths and critical minerals like zirconium, platinum and nickel.
This asymmetry creates strategic choke points. Asia’s cleantech resilience depends on countries working together to ensure supply chain diversification. Ideally, Asian economies would move beyond competition to a nuanced analysis of comparative advantage, component by component: from aluminium foil to silver paste, from electrolytes to junction boxes.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/asia-climate-leader-india-china-renewable-energy-5472091
