India will offer 37.6 billion rupees ($455.2 million) in incentives to companies setting up battery storage projects totalling 4,000 megawatt hours (MWh) under a scheme announced earlier this year, government sources said.
The scheme, details of which were not previously known, is intended to boost battery storage projects critical to India’s ambitious plan to expand its renewable energy capacity to 500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.
It also aims to cut the cost of battery energy storage from the current 5.5-6.5 rupees per unit.
Battery storage, used to back up intermittent renewable power supply to stabilise the grid, is an evolving technology, and there are very few large-scale operational projects in the world. The scheme intends to develop large-scale battery energy storage systems to bring down costs through competitive bidding.
The government will provide so-called viability gap funding – incentives to cover risks of developers of critical infrastructure projects that are or may turn out to be economically unviable – in the form of grants for three years, the sources said.
It also expects private investments worth 56 billion rupees through the scheme.
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