The Union Minister of Power and New and Renewable Energy convened a meeting with senior officials from the central government, central PSUs, renewable energy developers, pumped storage developers, and battery manufacturers to discuss the “Report on Comprehensive Policy Framework for Promotion of Energy Storage in the Power Sector”. The minister emphasised that the goal should be to ensure that no energy is lost, and one must be able to store all of the energy that will be surplus at any specified instant.
As per the statement, some storage needs to be added with the generation in order to ensure round the clock renewable energy. Further, directions were given to prepare separate guidelines on the treatment of energy storage and resource adequacy. To reach the goal of 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030, the minister mandated that the storage capacity requirements be calculated year by year, taking into account the impending addition of solar and wind projects.
All hydro CPSUs and private enterprises were asked by the minister to survey and find pump hydro locations near existing hydroelectric plants.