The biggest challenge for the renewable energy sector in India today is the absence of a financial ecosystem fit to purpose and fit to scale. Even as India has aggressively scaled up its renewable energy targets, the financial commitments have not kept pace.

To be sure, renewable energy investments have been rising ($10.9 billion, or Rs 72,600 crore, in 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, as opposed to an average of $8 billion, or Rs 52,800 crore, in the previous three years). But even at this rate, we would be nowhere near the more than $200 billion (Rs 13 lakh crore) needed to ...