Storage tenders of 169 MWh capacity issued in last one year in India

Government of India expects to achieve a renewable energy capacity target of 260 GW by 2024. To support this growing share of renewables in the country, according to CEA, we require at least 136 GWh of energy storage systems by 2030. However, the current commissioned capacity of solar energy storage is only about 10.75 MWh in India.

In last one year, about 169 MWh of storage tenders with 246.7 MW of solar PV (including floating and hybrid technology) capacity has been issued. Most of the small scale tenders are issued across Jammu & Kashmir, Lakshadweep, Himachal Pradesh and Andaman & Nicobar Islands mainly to reduce the dependency on diesel in these remote locations. A big project of 160 MW of wind solar hybrid technology with storage capacity in range of 30-40 MWh is expected to come up in Andhra Pradesh. This project is funded by World Bank and bids are already submitted for this.

Table 1: Details of storage tenders in India, as of July 2019

Tendering authority Location Capacity Tender scope Current status Winner Date of tender issuance
REIL Andaman & Nicobar Islands 1.7 MW solar, 1 MWh storage EPC RFS Issued   Apr 2019
SECI Andhra Pradesh 160 MW wind solar hybrid with 30-40 MWh storage EPC Bids submitted   Apr 2019
SECI Leh 3 MW solar, 3.2 MWh storage EPC Results announced Sunsource Mar 2019
SECI Leh and Kargil 14 MW solar, 42 MWh storage BOO RFS Issued   Mar 2019
SECI Lakshadweep 20 MW floating solar, 60 MWh storage EPC Bids submitted   Feb 2019
NLC Andaman & Nicobar Islands 20 MW solar, 8MWh storage EPC Result announced L&T Apr 2018
SECI Leh 3 MW solar, 5 MWh storage EPC Result announced Jul 2018
NTPC Andaman & Nicobar Islands 17 MW solar, 6.8 MWh storage EPC Result announced BHEL (INR 98 million/ MW) Mar 2018
NTPC Andaman & Nicobar Islands 8 MW solar, 3.2 MWh storage EPC Result announced BHEL Mar 2018

Source: SECI, JMK Research

Apart from the above mentioned tenders, SECI has also issued two NIT’s for another 1,600 MW solar along with 3,900 MWh of storage capacity tenders.

Players who are actively bidding so far in these tenders are- Mahindra Susten, L&T, BHEL, Hero, Sterling & Wilson, IBC Solar, Greenko, Sterlite and Exide. As of July 2019, results are already announced for about 48 MW of solar along with 21.2 MWh of storage tenders.

Figure 1: Winners of storage projects in India, as of July 2019

Source: JMK Research

This growth spurt in storage tenders is related to few main factors- falling costs of storage technologies, rising share of renewables making it imperative to have storage for balancing and improving stability of grid and lastly the government push. Some of the recent initiatives taken by the government to bring momentum in this sector are:

  • In July 2019, in the budget, government has reduced custom duties on cobalt mattes – a key ingredient for advanced lithium-ion batteries – from 5% to 2.5%
  • In March 2019, cabinet approved National Mission of Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage, under which phased Manufacturing Programmes, valid till 2024, are approved to support e-mobility and battery storage
  • Government’s new Wind-Solar hybrid policy (May 2018) permits any kind of energy storage technology for hybrid projects

Even though the market is moving at a slow pace, however with all the steps in right direction, the future of storage market in India looks bright.