Leading renewable energy (RE) players are scaling up their exposure to the “hybrid” segment as part of a strategy to minimise the revenue risks. Hybrid plants can ensure “more stable” power generation and revenue streams due to their diversified nature. They also help cut costs and address the issues of intermittency and grid connectivity associated with single-source RE projects.
Mahindra Susten, Adani Green, ReNew are among the firms that have already firmed up plans to expand the share of hybrid power in their portfolios.
Mahindra Susten envisages about a fourth of its portfolio to comprise hybrid and complex projects. The company is building a 150 MW hybrid project at a cost of `1,200 crore in Maharashtra. This will be one of the company’s largest co-located solar and wind hybrid project in the state to deliver clean energy to commercial and industrial (C&I) customers.
“We are, on an ongoing basis, evaluating utility tenders in this (hybrid) domain as also assessing land/connectivity for same,” said Deepak Thakur, managing director and CEO at Mahindra Susten.
Thakur said sharing of power evacuation infrastructure (transmission lines, etc) for co-located hybrid projects would reduce capital expenditure and operational costs.
Adani Green is executing hybrid projects across many sites and is planning to expand the hybrid portfolio to 5-7 GW in the next five years, according to CEO Amit Singh. The company also aims to be the world’s largest wind solar hybrid power developer with a 2,140 MW portfolio.
Located in Jaisalmer, Adani Green’s wind-solar hybrid cluster marked the country’s first hybrid power plant and continues to be the world’s largest, Singh said. This wind-solar hybrid power plant also caters to Mumbai city.
Wind-solar hybrid system can play a crucial role in low-cost green hydrogen (GH2) production by increasing the utilisation factor of electrolysers to over 50% compared to solar or wind alone, thereby significantly reducing cost of production, Singh said.
ReNew, founded by Sumant Sinha, is developing seven hybrid projects, which will add a combined capacity of 3,168 MW of wind and solar power to the grid. The company plans to incur a capital expenditure of nearly Rs 52,000 crore for these projects.
“We are focusing on increasing dispatchability with battery storage. Three projects within those seven are categorised as FDRE (firm & dispatchable renewable energy),” said Sinha. Standalone solar and wind farms typically have PLFs (capacity utilisation) in the 20-35% range. Hybrid projects can achieve a PLF exceeding 45%, significantly improving grid efficiency, he said, adding battery storage (FDRE) can further push PLF to as high as 70%, he said.
Hero Future Energies has executed India’s first hybrid project, its Manvi Hybrid plant (50 MWp wind + 37 MWp Solar) and now have 6 under construction projects totaling 2.6 GWp solar/wind/storage, said it’s global CEO Srivatsan Iyer, Global CEO, Hero Future Energies.
“We have won five bids over the past 12 months. All of these bids are for peak dispatchable power. In fact, if you look at the list of winners, there are the only two IPPs including ourselves who have won a part of every single tender. This is in line with our strategy to participate in technologically more intensive and complex bids, to allow us to contribute to more dispatchable renewable energy,” Iyer said.
Auctions of hybrid- and storage-linked projects are also on the rise — up from 4 GW in FY21 and FY22 to nearly 18 GW in FY23 and FY24, Crisil Ratings said in a report in May this year.
Ankit Hakhu, director, Crisil Ratings, said, “Hybrid- and storage-linked projects would push higher wind additions. Nearly 30-50% of capacity of these projects will comprise wind power as these require developers to provide renewable power throughout the day, especially demand peaks during evening and night hours.”