Storage Options for Renewable Energy

Context- Recently, the Government of India has started exploring storage options as the share of renewables increases in the grid.

Key Highlights 

Current Scenario 

• In order to operationally sustain a huge monthly addition of an average 1,000 megawatt from non-fossil fuels or renewables to the electricity grid, India needs to urgently work on developing viable energy storage options.
• The amount is around five times the amount of power a 250 MWe nuclear plant produces.

Producer 

• India is the third largest producer of renewable energy in the world.
• About 40 percent of installed electricity capacity comes from non-fossil fuel sources. 
• This green push has resulted in a sharp 24 percent reduction in emission intensity of GDP between 2005 and 2016, but it has also thrown up challenges of a grid being increasingly powered by renewables.

Alternative to Lithium Ion Batteries:

• Even as the Lithium-ion storage battery option for grid application is now being ruled out as unviable, at least for the current scenario, an emerging policy resolution is that solar and wind-based generation cannot continue to be pushed down to struggling electricity distribution companies or discoms. 

Solar Energy

• Solar energy is any such type of energy generated by the sun.
• Solar energy is created by nuclear fusion which takes place in the sun. 
• Fusion mainly occurs when protons of hydrogen atoms violently collide in the sun’s core and fuse to create a helium atom. 
• India had committed for installing 175,000 MW of renewable energy by the year 2022 of which 100,000 MW was to be solar power. 
• As of October 2022, 61,000 MW of solar power had been installed till now.

Major Programmes in Renewable Energy Sector 

National Solar Mission (NSM) 

• The mission was launched with the objective of establishing India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for solar technology diffusion across the country.
• The initial goal of NSM was to install 20 GW solar power by 2022. 
• It was later upscaled to 100 GW in early 2015. 

Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) 

• PM-KUSUM was launched in 2019 and it aims to help farmers access reliable day-time solar power for irrigation, reduce power subsidies, and decarbonise agriculture. 
• It provides farmers with incentives to install solar power pumps and plants in their fields. 

Atal Jyoti Yojana (AJAY) Phase-II

• It is a scheme for the installation of solar street lights with a 25% fund contribution from MPLAD Funds. 

Solar Parks Scheme

• Solar parks provide solar power developers with a plug and play model, by facilitating the required infrastructure like land, power evacuation facilities, road connectivity, water facility etc. along with all statutory clearances.

Challenges 

• Non-availability of natural gas to run gas turbines:

• • • It complements the increasing RE capacity in the generation mix. 
    • India’s huge fleet of coal-based power plants of 200 MW series are more than 25 years old, run on old technology and do not promise robust reliability. 

• India’s heavy load: 

• • • The heavy load demand is far from saturated.
    • There is also the need to replace obsolete coal-based plants with supercritical highly-efficient coal-based plants as an intermediate goal for total transition. 
    • However, it may not be acceptable to the international community in view of the impending climate crisis.
  • Coal based usage reduction: 
    • There is an immediate need to reduce the percentage of coal-based capacity by closing the inefficient fleet
    • Simultaneously it needs to add new flexible capacity to meet load requirements. 
    • Newer technologies or avenues are required which can convert coal-based capacity to a fuel mix of gas and hydrogen.

• Storage capacity & flexibility of thermal power plants: 

• • • Thermal power plants should be made flexible up to 55 percent and in coming phases, after three years, go down to 40 percent.
    • Battery storage is very expensive at Rs 10 per kilowatt per hour. There is a fresh impetus required to pursue pumped hydro projects so as to reduce costs.

• Reduced scope to go renew: 

• • The renewables challenge is compounded by the fact that SECI (Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd) has locked a number of contracts which involve green developers in rigid PPAs (power purchase agreements) with no scope for innovation.

Way Ahead

• Hydrogen and hybrid generation models blended with off-stream pumped storage:

• • • Stepping up green hydrogen production and tapping into its potential as a fuel must be expedited. 
    • All pumped hydro sites and hydro PSUs have been given a goal of taking up pumped hydro schemes. 
    • There must be opencast mines as potential sites for pumped hydro in the future.

• Energy storage:

• • • It is also needed alongside green energy sources to primarily balance out the variability in renewable generation – electricity is generated only when the sun shines or when the wind blows. 
    • However this is not always in sync with the demand cycle. 
    • Storage can also help tide over the shortcoming associated with renewables.

• Renewables bundled with a viable storage option:

• • For procurers like state-owned discoms, renewables are not always a viable option precisely due to these vagaries in the generation trends, which means that they still have to depend on thermal or nuclear generation for meeting base load demand. 
  • The option will help overcome this problem.

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