At a glance
- Power Ministry secretary Pankaj Agarwal said Thursday at the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit that federal authorities will mandate the storage capacity additions.
- The scheme covers 30 GWh of battery energy storage systems, 60 GWh of pumped storage projects and 2 GWh of emerging storage technologies, all of it for capacity not yet commissioned.
- For allocators underwriting Indian storage, the subsidy works out to about $17 million per gigawatt-hour of supported capacity.
India plans to require state-owned utilities to add energy storage capacity. Power Ministry secretary Pankaj Agarwal said Thursday at the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit that federal authorities will mandate the storage capacity additions. The mandate has not been issued.
The federal government this week approved a $1.54 billion (145 billion rupee) viability gap funding program for 92 gigawatt-hours of grid-scale storage. The scheme covers 30 GWh of battery energy storage systems, 60 GWh of pumped storage projects and 2 GWh of emerging storage technologies, all of it for capacity not yet commissioned. The support “will help improve the financial viability of these projects and accelerate the deployment of large-scale energy storage infrastructure in the country,” the government said.
For allocators underwriting Indian storage, the subsidy works out to about $17 million per gigawatt-hour of supported capacity. A utility mandate would put state-owned offtakers on the other side of storage contracts rather than merchant dispatch. The government has not said how much capacity each utility must add or by when.
Curtailment is the stated reason. JMK Research & Analytics data reported by OilPrice.com showed as much as 118.6 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity curtailed in September. “Key reasons for RE curtailment include demand-generation mismatches, transmission constraints, limited storage and grid flexibility, and seasonal overlaps between high renewable output and moderate demand,” JMK said.
Record renewable and solar output in July and August was overshadowed by curtailments in those months, when India experienced power availability shortages, according to OilPrice.com. A separate regulation, due to take effect in July 2027, will require developers of solar and wind projects to install battery storage at their sites. Agarwal said India is working to launch additional clean energy tenders for energy storage. The 2027 rule lands on developers and their lenders, while the utility mandate would land on state distribution companies.
Pumped storage takes two-thirds of the supported GWh
Grid-scale storage capacity covered by the viability gap funding scheme, in GWh
| Part | Value (GWh) | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 60 | 65.2% | |
| 30 | 32.6% | |
| 2 | 2.2% |
Reported by the Energy Transition desk from OilPrice.com and JMK Research & Analytics (data reported by OilPrice.com). Published . Corrections