Project execution delays driven by land aggregation hurdles, transmission bottlenecks, and policy gaps dominated conversations at the Mercom India Renewables Summit 2025. India continues to set installation records and meet goals ahead of schedule. However, developers, engineering, procurement, and construction contractors, financiers, and policymakers all agree that growth will slow down unless execution challenges are addressed.

Execution Delays and the Tender-to-PPA Gap

India has entered a phase where auctions and demand are no longer bottlenecks. The real struggle is getting projects built and connected.

Sarit Maheshwari, CEO at NTPC Green Energy, said integration and curtailment risks are now part of developers’ daily reality. “A day’s solar generation lost is generation lost forever,” he warned, adding that execution has become more critical than financing or even policy clarity.

Other panelists also noted that approximately 50 GW of tenders are floated annually, aligned with national targets; however, power purchase agreements (PPA) signings and regulatory approvals are lagging. Speakers referred to the “tender-to-PPA gap” as one of the most damaging yet least visible risks. “We discover tariffs at auctions, but it can take months for distribution companies to approve them, and that lag slows everything else.”

Capacity on paper is not translating quickly into capacity on the ground.

For investors, this lag directly increases financing risk. Large developers can absorb the delays, but smaller firms cannot. As one panelist put it, “Tier-2 developers face much higher execution risk premiums because lenders know their cost of capital balloons when land or transmission is delayed.” The result is market consolidation in favor of big firms.

Equipment and Transmission Constraints

Securing tenders is only half the battle. Developers noted that transformers, isolators, insulators, and high-voltage switchgear now have delivery timelines of 18 to 20 months. These delays hit large projects hardest, where generation and evacuation infrastructure must be synchronized.

Vaibhav Roongta, Chief Business Officer at Rays Power Infra, noted, “We can aggregate land and build out solar, but without transformers and switchgear, the project cannot move. These are bottlenecks as real as financing.”

Simarpreet Singh, ED and CEO at Hartek Group, echoed the concern. “There is so much talk about solar module oversupply, but no one is discussing that transformers and extra high voltage gear are chronically undersupplied. Without parallel growth in this part of the supply chain, execution timelines will continue to slip.”

Curtailment adds to the execution risk. Maheshwari argued that without storage, rising solar penetration is already forcing developers to lose generation during peak hours. The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has promoted hybrid and round-the-clock auctions to address this issue, but developers have noted that these formats present their own execution challenges.

Land Aggregation Challenges

Land remains one of the most visible bottlenecks. Developers agreed that India has enough wasteland potential, but the process of acquiring and converting it has slowed significantly. Roongta noted that aggregating 1,200 to 1,500 acres for a large solar park now takes 15 to 16 months, almost double the time needed earlier. The real challenge, he said, is not availability but the time required for conversion, registration, and approvals.

Birendra Pandey, Head of Energy Commercialization at Enfinity Global India, added that inconsistent state-level policies compound the issue. In industrially strong states, demand exists, but the problems of land aggregation and open access remain unclear or unsupported. “Clients want power, but we cannot move projects when state rules are either contradictory or not implemented,” he said.

Wind projects are even harder hit. A SECI official pointed out that of the 11 GW of hybrid PPAs awarded, only 2.5 GW have been commissioned, with wind delays the main reason. Solar can be built in 18 months, but wind faces longer gestation periods due to siting restrictions, right-of-way (ROW) disputes, and community pushbacks. “We are seeing ROW disputes, stricter turbine siting criteria, and community resistance. These make commissioning wind alongside solar in a hybrid project very challenging,” the official said.

Singh called the right-of-way for transmission “notorious” and argued that it is almost absent from policy frameworks. “We need to treat ROW as a central bottleneck, not an afterthought,” he said, noting that projects are being delayed even after generation is ready because transmission corridors are blocked.

Hybrid Projects and Storage Risks

The mismatch between solar and wind execution cycles is making it difficult to deliver hybrid and round-the-clock projects. Developers explained that earlier hybrids were structured as simple solar-plus-wind projects, but synchronizing them has proven much harder than anticipated. With storage prices falling, most expect future tenders to favor solar-plus-storage over solar-plus-wind, though this shift brings its own risks.

Bankability of storage is improving, but concerns about warranties, import dependence, and battery management systems still weigh on execution. Developers said these uncertainties remain significant barriers to reliable delivery.

Investor Perspective on Execution Risk

Financiers were blunt about how execution delays are reshaping India’s investment profile. While India remains attractive, consistent delays erode confidence. Large global investors will continue to commit, but repeated six-month lags in land acquisition or transmission approvals change the overall risk calculation.

Raj Prabhu, CEO at Mercom Capital, captured the sentiment. “Targets do not build projects. Execution does. Right now, the risk is not the lack of demand or policy but the ability to get projects built on time and connected to the grid.”

The overall tone was pragmatic. India’s renewable targets remain ambitious and achievable, but execution is now the decisive factor. Land aggregation has slowed, equipment lead times are lengthening, and hybrid projects are struggling to synchronize.