India plans storage mandate for state utilities

Pankaj Agarwal, secretary in the Indian Power Ministry, said at the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit that federal authorities will require state utilities to add storage capacity. He did not give a timeline for the mandate, but the move follows a growing recognition that India’s renewables boom is colliding with infrastructure bottlenecks.

The scale of the mismatch is already visible. JMK Research & Analytics said India curtailed as much as 118.6 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity in September, citing transmission constraints, limited storage and weak grid flexibility. That follows curtailments in July and August, when record renewable generation was overshadowed by shortages in power availability. For investors, that means more installed capacity is not automatically translating into more monetizable output, which pressures returns for developers and raises the value of storage assets that can shift power into higher-demand hours.

New rules already in train point in the same direction. India plans from July 2027 to require developers of solar and wind projects to install battery storage at project sites, while the government this week approved a $1.54 billion viability-gap funding program to support 92 GWh of grid-scale storage, including 30 GWh of battery systems, 60 GWh of pumped storage and 2 GWh of emerging technologies.

The policy mix should help improve project bankability and reduce curtailment risk, but it also shifts capital spending toward a more complex grid buildout. Storage, transmission and flexibility upgrades will be needed in tandem if India wants to preserve the pace of renewable additions without wasting output. The near-term beneficiaries are likely to be storage developers, equipment suppliers and utilities with access to regulated returns, while pure-play solar and wind owners may face higher integration costs even as the longer-term prize is a more reliable and profitable clean-power market.