India Faces 6-10 PM Power Shortfalls as Solar Output Drops After Sunset

India's power grid has developed a new weak spot during the early-evening hours, when solar generation tapers off but demand from cooling appliances stays high. Grid Controller of India data show an energy shortfall of 15.87 million units (MUs) on 26 May 2026 — enough electricity to power about three million households for a full day. The shortfall is 0.2 per cent of overall demand, well above the 0.05 per cent ceiling set by the Central Electricity Authority.

Industry experts say the 6 PM to 10 PM window has become the defining stress period for the grid. Daytime solar supplies are now sufficient to meet peak demand even during heatwaves, but as the sun sets the system has to draw heavily on thermal and storage capacity. About 40 GW of India's 239 GW thermal fleet — roughly 15 per cent — is currently under forced outage due to technical faults, compressing the available evening cushion.

Most of the recent shortages have hit the northern and western regions, with Maharashtra, Haryana and Punjab seeing the sharpest outages. The Centre has asked state utilities to speed up battery energy storage system (BESS) procurement and to make distribution-level demand-response programmes operational. New tariff slabs for industrial and commercial consumers in evening peak hours are also being studied so that price signals shift some load to off-peak windows.

The structural fix lies in pairing solar with storage, expanding pumped hydro and bringing more flexible gas-based plants onto evening dispatch. The Ministry of Power has separately set a target of 47 GW of battery storage capacity by 2030, but only a fraction is operating today, making evening reliability the most pressing power-sector challenge of this summer.