Abstract
Abstract
The Indian Government has ambitious goals for the renewable energy (RE) transition in the country, especially through the expansion of wind and solar. New monitoring stations have come up in recent years to support this countrywide expansion. Despite all these, there still remains a gap in the observational network in terms of spatial distribution and long-term data availability when compared against global RE leaders. For example, in the highest wind-resource state/province in 2024, the maximum number of wind farms having at least one observing station within a 25 km radius in India is 11, whereas the corresponding numbers for China, the contiguous United States, and Germany are 84, 162, and 206, respectively. Additionally, only a handful of stations in India have more than 90% data record in the past decade from 2014–2024, a stark contrast to the above-mentioned countries. While some wind and solar observations over India are available freely, majority of them are not, thereby posing a hindrance to the advancement of RE research in the country, especially on understanding factors affecting grid integration, compound wind-solar droughts, energy mix and energy reserve, resilience of RE systems, long-term projections and planning. The present study provides a comparative assessment of India’s observational infrastructure for RE applications. Overall, India’s current observational datasets provide an important foundation but are not yet commensurate with the country’s rapidly expanding RE ambitions. Strengthening observation-network density, long-term data continuity, and data accessibility will be essential to support energy planning and services in India across a multitude of scales.