The government is looking at changes in the supply profile of stalled renewable energy projects within the tariffs already discovered, including the addition of battery storage, to help nearly 42 GW of auctioned capacity secure buyers, Renewable Energy Secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi said on Friday.
Developers are already adding battery energy storage systems (BESS) to plain-vanilla solar projects to make them more attractive to distribution companies that increasingly want electricity beyond daylight hours. The shift is significant as standalone solar projects account for around 17-18 GW of the capacity yet to find offtakers, while another 14-15 GW was awarded at relatively high tariffs.
“We have asked all the REIAs to look for ways in which discoms will be able to buy this, and if necessary, some changes in the profile also could be experimented within the rates discovered,” Sarangi said at the BNEF Summit. He said developers were adding battery storage to vanilla solar bids to make them “more palatable” to discoms.
However, the government does not expect every stalled project to find a buyer. “A lot of those vanilla solar bids are not going to be sold,” Sarangi said.
“If there is a requirement, there will be cancellation, but that is not our first option,” he added. REIAs will continue trying to secure buyers before moving towards cancellation.
For projects that remain unviable, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission’s July 2026 regulations provide a penalty-free exit route. Sarangi said developers that had furnished bank guarantees for connectivity can exit without forfeiting those guarantees.
Plain solar projects and some hybrid bids where price discovery was high are likely to be the most vulnerable. Developers could either exercise the exit option or, eventually, REIAs may have to cancel such bids. “The backlog is going to whittle down,” Sarangi said.
The push towards storage also comes amid rising curtailment as rapid solar additions create large daytime surpluses. About 11% of solar generation during the hottest months this year was curtailed. India’s transmission system could not absorb more than 8 billion kWh during April-June, even as 63 billion kWh reached the grid. Nearly 21 GW of renewable projects have only part-time grid access, making them more exposed to curtailment.
Sarangi expects “gigantic growth” in battery storage as India builds transmission infrastructure and moves towards firm renewable power. India is estimated to require around 411 GWh of storage by 2031-32, while about 156 GWh of battery storage is already under tendering or order-placement processes.
Auction design is also moving towards firm and dispatchable renewable energy, solar-wind hybrid and round-the-clock projects. A recent 1,000-MW round-the-clock renewable tender discovered a tariff of around Rs 5.25 per unit, with 90% assured power availability between 6 pm and 10 am.
Sarangi said India would require about $500 billion of renewable-energy investment by 2030 and around $13 trillion by 2070, highlighting the scale of capital needed as the sector shifts from simply adding capacity to supplying firm and reliable green power.