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For six years in a row, India's monopoly coal producer has missed its production targets, leading to chronic electricity shortages and sending power producers scrambling for pricier imports. But what looks like a looming crisis could turn out to be an almost accidental energy overhaul.

Like many developing nations, India has relied for decades on cheap coal to provide electricity for burgeoning industry and fast-expanding cities, putting aside worries about pollution and global warming. But from three years ago when solar capacity was almost zero, the country has added 2.2 gigawatts of solar to its electricity grid, enough to power 20 million Indian homes. It plans another 2 GW this year, toward a total 15 GW addition by 2017. Individual states plan even more. India has also added about 26 GW in coal-fired capacity since 2011, but already plants are sitting idle for lack of cheap supply.

"I've stopped developing coal plants," said Ratul Puri, chairman of Hindustan Power Projects Ltd. "There's not enough coal, and I'm not going to rely on imported coal. It's too risky." After building two coal-fired plants due to start generating this year, Hindustan Power plans to invest nearly $3 billion to expand its 350 megawatts of solar generation to 1 GW by 2017.

Decisions like Hindustan Power's are more pragmatism than idealism as the coal industry trips up on its own dysfunction. Coal India, the monopoly producer, is too large and unwieldy to do any better. Much of the country's easy-to-access surface coal has been extracted, with the remaining reserves harder to reach: underground, beneath cities or within national parks and tiger reserves.

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