India is advancing its Green Energy Corridor with Phases 3 and 4 to enhance renewable power integration.
The new phases aim to evacuate 150 GW of renewable energy, significantly larger than previous phases.
It will require substantial investment to support the national grid's stability and capacity growth.
The India government is preparing to significantly scale up its renewable power evacuation network under Green Energy Corridor (GEC) Phases 3 and 4, even as earlier phases remain under implementation and grid constraints remain a major brake on India’s clean energy expansion.
GEC is the Centre’s flagship transmission programme to support large-scale integration of renewable energy into the national grid, which is an essential pillar of India’s plan to achieve 500 gigawatt (GW) of non-fossil power capacity by 2030.
India's GEC Phase 1 aimed to evacuate significant renewable energy, with around 20 GW capacity commissioned. Phase 2 targets an additional 20 GW integration through new transmission lines (10,750 ckm) and substations (27,500 MVA), focusing on key states for grid stability by the 2026-27 financial year (FY27).
Phase 1 is nearly complete, with about 90-100 per cent of its transmission lines and substations commissioned across eight states. There was a delay in reaching its initial 2022 target due to land acquisition hurdles, right-of-way clearances, equipment supply constraints and financing challenges. Work for this phase is expected to finish very soon, while Phase 2 is underway.
Phase 1 covers Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, while Phase 2 expands to include Kerala and Uttar Pradesh and adding to Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
With renewable capacity additions accelerating, the next phase is being designed at a much larger scale. “Now, we are planning for around 150 GW of renewable energy for evacuation,” a senior government official told Down To Earth (DTE), adding that the expansion is “almost eight to ten times larger than both earlier corridors put together”.
According to the official, the new corridors will be implemented in stages. “We will do it in phases. It could be two phases or even three, given the large capacity. In phase 1, some 10 states are covered. In phase 2, some seven to eight states are covered. In phase 3 and phase 4, everything else will be covered, across India.”
The scale of Phases 3 and 4 implies a substantial budgetary requirement in the coming years, even as spending under earlier phases continues. Though the official did not put a number, the cost or expenditure could be 10 times higher than the previous phases.
According to a report in the newspaper Mint published on March 19, 2025, GEC-III was proposed in the Union budget for FY26, with an overall cost estimated at Rs 56,000 crore and the Centre covering 40 per cent of it.
The transmission backbone will be developed under the inter-state transmission system (ISTS). “ISTS is across India,” the official said, underlining the national character of the project. “They are purely to support the states to evacuate renewable energy.”
From a technical standpoint, high-voltage long-distance lines will form the core of the network. “It is always preferred that the long distance should be at high voltage — mostly 765 kV,” the official said, adding, “DC is again preferred” to reduce transmission losses over long distances.
However, MNRE officials, including this one, acknowledge that transmission has become the principal constraint on renewable deployment. “Already, we have transmission, but the main bottleneck is connectivity,” the official said.
An industry paper on India’s transmission sector, released by the Confederation of Indian Industry in September 2025, warned that bottlenecks in grid expansion, regulatory overlaps and financing challenges could undermine the nation’s clean energy transition if left unaddressed.
As renewable deployment expands beyond traditional solar and wind hubs, the Centre is positioning GEC Phases 3 and 4 as the next-generation grid backbone, which is central not only to capacity growth, but also to grid stability, interstate power balancing and the credibility of India’s renewable roadmap.