Tracking India’s Energy Transition
Battery energy storage systems, pumped hydro and grid flexibility.
As solar and wind flood the grid, India is leaning on pumped storage for long-duration firming — with a national roadmap targeting 100 GW and a wave of state MoUs for multi-gigawatt projects led by Maharashtra.
Standalone battery tariffs that crashed to historic lows in 2025 have firmed through 2026 — GUVNL's latest auction cleared at ₹2.32 lakh/MW/month — as developers and analysts warn that the cheapest bids may never have been bankable.
A firm, dispatchable, round-the-clock renewable tender has cleared at ₹5.25/kWh — fresh evidence that storage-backed clean power can supply reliable baseload-style electricity at competitive rates.
A power-importing state with an evening-peak problem is turning to batteries — Kerala is accelerating 750 MW of BESS projects to firm up its renewable supply.
The 12th edition of IESW brought delegates from 15 countries to New Delhi from July 8–10, with the mood shifting from “whether storage” to “how much, how fast”.
Operational battery energy storage climbed from 0.78 GWh in December 2025 to about 8.7 GWh by June 2026, with 10 GW under construction and roughly 20 GW in active tendering.
Recent SECI auctions have cleared solar-with-storage bids at levels analysts describe as competitive with new coal plants — a threshold with big implications for what India builds next.