Buildings, transport and industrial sectors are increasingly betting on electrification to reduce their carbon emissions. This makes scaling up renewable power all the more critical. India is expected to add more than 350 GW of renewable power capacity (including large hydro) in this decade. This is over four times the renewable power capacity added during 2010-2020. 75% of this capacity expansion will come from variable solar and wind power. This makes it necessary to add balancing sources like energy storage systems (ESS) to maintain grid stability.
Moreover, businesses will need ESS to fast-track decarbonization of their energy use. Most large commercial and industrial (C&I) consumers have set aggressive net-zero emissions goals, much in advance of India’s target of 2070. This will require working out ways to decarbonize faster than the pace at which renewable power is being integrated into the power grid.
Commercial relevance of energy storage
ESS help achieve greater utilization of the available capacity of the grid and renewable sources. While the need for energy storage is clear at the individual power consumer and at the national power system level, is it a commercially viable solution today? The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), in its ‘Business guide to energy storage adoption in India’ identifies the following use cases to make ESS adoption commercially viable as of today:
Meeting peak load requirement: It would cost around INR 55/kWh for a distribution utility to contract new base load thermal power to meet the peak load that occurs for around 3.5% of the time in a year, as compared to less than INR 25/kWh in case of standalone ESS. When ESS is co-located with a hybrid solar and wind power plant, it would also be commercially attractive for meeting the peak load that occurs 25% of the time in a year.
Enhancing availability of renewable power plants: Various energy storage technologies are already being commercially used by distribution utilities and C&I consumers to ensure a greater power supply from renewable sources than naturally available over a defined period of time. National-level tenders like the SECI 400 MW RTC have shown that this is achievable at a cost that is less than that of thermal power procurement.
Diesel abatement: The current cost of using diesel by C&I consumers to generate power in cases of grid outage is around INR 35/kWh, while ESS (standalone or with solar rooftop) can bring this down significantly (to INR 18/kWh and INR 15/kWh respectively) for locations which have 1 hour of daily grid outage.
Value stacking of two or more use cases is the best bet to optimize revenue streams from the same ESS asset. This will also protect adopters in case any use case becomes redundant in the future, for instance, reduced need for power back-up with improvements in the power supply situation.
Read more at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/why-india-inc-needs-energy-storage-solutions-and-how-it-can-do-it/articleshow/98244833.cms