India needs to scale up to 600 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil-fuel capacity by 2030 to meet its growing electricity demand reliably and affordably, which will require significant investments in energy storage systems (ESS), said a report by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).
Deploying 600 GW of clean energy across more states could reduce generation costs by 6-18 paise per unit, eliminate the need for new coal plants, save between ₹13,000 crore and ₹42,400 crore in power procurement costs, and create 53,000-1,00,000 additional jobs—all while cutting carbon emissions by 9-16 per cent, compared to FY24, the study projected.
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“Achieving 600 GW-non-fossil capacity would require significant investments in flexible resources such as battery storage (70 GW of four-hour battery energy storage systems), pumped storage hydro (13 GW), and retrofitting 140 GW of coal capacity to manage grid stability,” it added.
The rapidly declining cost of battery storage favours a high RE pathway. For instance, in the last two years alone, tariffs for stand-alone battery storage have dropped by 65 per cent, without any subsidy support, the report emphasised.
Another positive step in scaling RE integration is the Indian government’s recent mandate for all future solar project tenders to include energy storage systems with at least two hours of capacity to improve grid stability.
The CEEW report recommends a set of policy measures to accelerate India’s clean power transition and set ambitious targets that send a strong market signal.
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“The Ministry of Power (MoP) must set a clear target of 600 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030 and integrate it into the National Electricity Policy. It must promote a technologically and geographically diverse RE portfolio,” the report suggested.
Besides, the Ministry, in collaboration with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and other agencies, must identify innovative models to utilise existing land and transmission infrastructure by co-locating wind and storage with solar projects, implement a Uniform RE Tariff (URET) to tackle concerns about falling clean energy prices, innovate bidding and contract designs, and unlock de-risked merchant capacity for RE sales, it added.
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If power demand were to continue to outpace current projections due to a warming planet or strong economic growth over the coming five years, the report suggests that a high RE pathway of 600 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030 offers the most viable solution, mainly due to cheaper RE resources.
This would include 377 GW of solar, 148 GW of wind, 62 GW of hydro, and 20 GW of nuclear energy.
