'India needs rapid battery storage expansion as renewable capacity rises'

The growing renewable capacity has created an immediate need to scale up storage systems, industry stakeholders said, highlighting the huge gap between the demand and current capability to manufacture essential battery cell components.

Sharing their views with PTI, industry members have also cautioned against treating import dependence as a reason for slow deployment.

The experts' comments assume significance as India's domestic battery manufacturing currently accounts for less than 1 per cent (2 GWh) of its approximately 260 GWh demand pipeline from competitive tenders in 2026.

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) and pumped storage projects are gaining importance as India expands renewable capacity to meet rising electricity demand and balance solar generation with peak demand, Sunkind India founder and Managing Director Hanish Gupta said.

Batteries and other storage technologies are key to addressing the intermittency risk of solar power and unlocking its growth potential, Premier Energies Chief Business Officer Vinay Rustagi said.

Volks Energie CEO and co-founder Piyush Goyal said India's storage demand is running well ahead of what domestic cell manufacturing can supply, and that gap is a matter of years, not a few quarters.

"I would caution against treating import dependence as a reason to slow deployment. The grid needs storage now to firm up the renewable capacity we are adding, and pausing for a decade until cells are fully indigenous is not a choice we can make," he said.

In a public disclosure, NTPC Chairman Gurdeep Singh said that a storage system helps in both ways. During the daytime, RE power generated can be stored and used in the absence of sunlight.

He shared that NTPC has been allocated 5 GWh of battery energy storage capacity under the Viability Gap Funding scheme to optimise existing thermal generation and transmission infrastructure and ensure reliable and economical power supply during non-solar hours.

In its latest research last week, Wood Mackenzie said it would take more than a decade for India to achieve self-sufficiency in battery storage, as there is a huge gap between demand and current capability to manufacture essential battery cell components.

The gap leaves the country structurally dependent on imports even as policy ambition accelerates, it said, noting that India has just 2 GWh of commissioned cell manufacturing capacity as of 2026, against China's cumulative capacity of 2,695 GWh, which controls between 85 per cent and 98 per cent of global capacity across every major supply chain component, from cathode to anode, separator and electrolyte.

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