India begins its journey for large scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS)
- Central government has given its approval for inviting the expression of interest for installation of 1000 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) as a pilot project.
- The decision comes as a big support to the Ministry of New and renewable which intends to achieve 450 GW renewable energy target by 2030.
- The government has allowed the state-owned Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) to call expressions of interest (EoI) for setting up a 1 gigawatt-hour (GWh) grid-scale battery storage system.
India’s plans for Energy storage system
- India plans to use energy storage system under following business cases:
- Renewable energy along with the energy storage system.
- Energy storage system as grid element to maximize the use of transmission system and strengthening grid stability and also to save investment in the augmentation of transmission infrastructure.
- Storage as an asset for balancing services and flexible operation. The system operator i.e. load dispatchers (RLDCs and SLDCs) may use storage system for frequency control and balancing services to manage the inherent uncertainty/variations in the load due to un-generation.
- Storage for distribution system i.e. it may be placed at the load centre to manage its peak load and other obligations.
- As a merchant capacity by the energy storage system developer and sell in the power market.
- Any other future business models as a combination of the above.
India’s Renewable Energy goals
- Currently, India is conducting the world’s largest clean energy programme, under which it aims to achieve 175 GW of renewable capacity, including 100GW of solar power by 2022.
- The government plans to call bids for setting up around 4 GWh of the grid-scale battery storage system at the regional load dispatch centres.
- In addition to this, state-run NTPC Ltd has also rolled out a global tender for setting up 1 GWh grid-scale battery storage system.
- There will be a need for 27GW of grid-scale battery energy storage systems by 2030 with four hours of storage according to the Central Electricity Authority of India.