Role of energy storage in Indian power sector
Student name: Mr Ukidve Gandhar G.
Guide: Dr Jami Hossain
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: Bridge To India
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Vinay Rustagi
Abstract: India is undergoing a rapid transformation in its power sector. Global mandate to mitigate climate change and falling costs of renewable power have been major drivers for the changing landscape of the power sector. Supportive policy framework including competitive bidding, viability gap funding, and accelerated depreciation has resulted in RE capacity installations increased from 30GW in 2014 to 69 GW as of April 2018. Also, the share of RE penetration has increased significantly to 8.6% in 2017 from 3.4% in 2007 and expected to reach 20.3% if the set target of 175 GW is realized in 2022. All scenarios point to a growing role for renewables raising the challenge of how to integrate a large amount of variable renewable power in the expanding power grid.
We identified various mechanisms with the help of which power system can be operated in a secure and reliable manner in lights of increasing share of renewable power injection in the grid. Hydro based power, flexible in nature, is facing serious bottlenecks in terms of land acquisition, environmental clearances, and local resistance. Further, the availability of water to meet the power requirement may be perceived as a hurdle in context of changing climate. Gas based power generation, although flexible than coal -based generation, is both scarce and expensive in India. However, energy storage holds huge promise. With rapid improvements in technology and projected fall in production costs, storage can help in multiple ways, specifically at utility scale, in allowing higher RE penetration in the grid.
Although storage capacity is beginning to be deployed in significant capacities internationally, India has made a sluggish progress in this area. In fact, most of the proposed tenders by state agencies such as NPTC, SECI have been scrapped and/ or re-floated with a reduction in capacity in the last few months. The key reason for this is lack of understanding in India about storage technologies, their applications, and potential, concerns about high costs, operational and regulatory issues etc.
This report is aimed at spreading awareness about storage technology in India. Leaning from global experience, the author wants to provide clarity on how storage can play a fundamental role in growing renewables and strengthening the grid through multiple applications and technologies. The author has also attempted to create a framework model with the help of which storage potential in India can be estimated given the supply and demand scenarios.
KEYWORDS: Battery energy storage, RE generation, power system, load demand, storage costs etc.
