India saw 27.9 GW of new, reactivated coal plant proposals in 2025: Report  

India has 107.3 GW of thermal capacity in pre-construction planning and another 23.5 GW under construction, even as record additions of solar and wind pushed non-fossil capacity to more than half of total installed power capacity in 2025, said a report.
The report by Global Energy Monitor, an independent organisation that tracks energy projects, said that the Indian government has set a target to add 100 GW of new coal capacity over the next seven years.

The report finds a growing paradox in the global energy transition; coal power capacity continued to expand in 2025, even as the actual use of coal for electricity generation declined.

It said that the global coal capacity increased by 3.5% in 2025, yet coal-fired generation fell by 0.6%. This divergence was most pronounced in China and India, where record-breaking wind and solar additions met almost all new demand, displacing coal even as plant commissioning reached decade-highs.

The report identifies a structural shift in how coal is used, suggesting the transition away from the dirtiest of fossil fuels is more durable than any short-term disruption to energy markets like those caused by current geopolitical events in the Strait of Hormuz.

The geographic footprint of coal development is also narrowing sharply. In 2025, only 32 countries were proposing or building new coal plants—down from 38 the prior year and less than half the 75 countries doing so in 2014.

Just 5% of coal power construction globally is outside China and India.

“In 2025, the world built more coal and used it less. Development has grown more concentrated too — 95% of coal plant construction is now in China and India, and even they are building solar and wind fast enough to displace it. The central challenge heading into 2026 is not the availability of alternatives, but the persistence of policies that treat coal as necessary even as power systems move increasingly beyond it,” said Christine Shearer, Project Manager of Global Energy Monitor’s Global Coal Plant Tracker.