Emission factors from Indian electricity remain poorly characterized, despite known spatial and temporal variability. Limited publicly available emissions and generation data at sufficient detail make it difficult to understand the consequences of emissions to climate change and air pollution, potentially missing cost-effective policy designs for the world’s third largest power grid. We use reduced-form and full-form power dispatch models to quantify current (2017–2018) and future (2030–2031) marginal CO2, SO2, NOX, and PM2.5 emission factors from Indian power generation. These marginal emissions represent emissions changes due to small changes in demand. For 2017–2018, spatial variability in marginal CO2 emission factors range 3 orders of magnitude across India’s states. There is limited seasonal and intraday variability with coal generation likely to meet changes in demand more than half the time in more than half of the states. Assuming the Government of India approximate 2030 targets, the median marginal CO2 emission factor across states decreases by approximately a factor of 2, but emission factors still span 3 orders of magnitude across states. Under 2030–2031 assumptions there is greater seasonal and intraday variability by up to factors of two and four, respectively. Estimates provide emission factors to evaluate interventions such as electric vehicles, increased air conditioning, and energy efficiency.

India’s coal contribution to the total electricity generation mix stood at 73% in 2018. To meet India’s NDC ambitions, the federal government announced determined targets to integrate 450 GW Renewable Energy in the grid by 2030. This paper explores the pathways to integrate high RE generation by 2030 with effective balancing of supply and demand and associated challenges of flexibility requirements. A Unit commitment and economic dispatch model, which simulates the power system operation was used. The overall share of variable renewables reaches 26% and 32% in the Baseline Capacity Scenario (BCS) and High Renewable Energy Scenario (HRES) respectively. Improved ramp rates and a minimum thermal loading limit induce flexibility in the thermal fleet. In the HRES, more than 16 GW of coal plants are required for two-shift operations in April and more than 50% of days see an aggregate all-India ramp from the coal fleet in excess of 500 MW per minute. Battery Storage provides daily balancing while reducing VRE curtailment to less than 0.2% in the HRES. Nationally Coordinated dispatch shows increased power transfer from high VRE regions to export power during high VRE generation periods. It is thus found that high RE penetration is possible by 2030 at no extra system costs.