India’s federal Planning Commission projects an investment of $300 billion in electrical power between 2012-2017 which is the period covered by the “Twelfth Five Year plan”, according to member B.K. Chaturvedi

The commission estimates that India will see capacity addition of 100 gigawatts during the period; this cCapacity addition will result in investment of at least $100 billion. Chaturvedi says a similar investment of around $100 billion is expected in distribution and transmission during the next plan period. And, that overall investment, including generation work in progress currently, will come to $300 billion of the $1 trillion infrastructure development planned.

The bulk of this power investment will result in coal-fired power plants, but India is also investing vigorously in nuclear, solar, hydro-electric, gas and oil, bio-mass and more. This investment will be a combination of government and private spending and may include debt funded from foreign sources.

This opens up many opportunities for foreign companies across the ecosystem, despite serious challenges in succeeding in this sector in India.