Sadly, our Indian grid is one of the dirtiest among many nations, due to our over dependence on coal.
But this is changing, many states are pushing for clean energy in their portfolio.
In this blog, I try to answer some questions - Which state has the cleanest grid? Which has the dirtiest? Which state ensures that your electric vehicle is running on clean electrons?
The following tables show the state wise distribution of electricity generation (Numbers as of December 2013 ; Source - Link)
Table 1 shows the dirty power generated (in MW)
States like Gujarat and Maharashtra are investing huge money in renewable energy. This leads to a very important point - that as these states clean up the grid, your electric vehicle will get cleaner as the years go by.
The southern states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu lead the industrialized states in generating clean energy. EV owners in these states can be sure that their vehicles will definitely be cleaner than oil based vehicles.

Mr Narendra Modi of the BJP, talks about our grid
“With the country having so much natural resources, India hasn't progressed much in the 21st century,”
“With eastern part of the country rich in water resources, it is a heaven for hydro power generation; also our coasts are fit for wind energy. Similarly our plains such as Gujarat and Rajasthan are fit for solar energy generation. If the planners had thought of these factors and formed a policy India wouldn't be so dependent on energy imports,”
Our national action plan on climate change recommends that we generate 10% of the power production from solar, wind, hydropower and other renewable sources by 2015, and 15% by 2020.
Our next government should absolutely take measures to clean up the grid and slowly but surely increase the generation of clean energy powered by renewable energy sources.
Despite India's coal based grid, electric vehicles offer enormous hope for reducing carbon emissions, improving local air quality and limiting noise pollution.
And the fact that cleaning up our grid in the coming years, will automatically ensure that your electric vehicle will also get cleaner in time.