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New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
India will test the installation of battery storage systems at some coal power plants, an advisor to the Power Ministry is reported to have said.
India’s power grid faces a major challenge balancing supply and demand as it continues to expand. While electricity demand peaks in the evening, intermittent solar power generation peaks in the middle of the day and declines over the afternoon to zero at night. On the other hand, thermal plants such as coal can provide 24/7 baseload power, but can be slow to ramp up and ramp down.
To address this, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has been drafting new guidelines for coal-based plants, including minimum load requirements, as the country accelerates its renewable energy rollout.
India is aiming to expand its non-fossil fuel capacity to 500 GW by 2030, but coal remains central to its energy security. The government plans to increase coal-based capacity by 97 GW by 2035, taking the total to around 307 GW, to ensure uninterrupted supply.
‘At times there are only two choices. Either you shut down the coal plant (during excess solar generation) or lose the thermal capacity in the evening, which we don’t want,’ CEA Chairman Ghanshyam Prasad told Reuters on the sidelines of the PowerGen India 2025 event in New Delhi.
‘We are just trying this as an experiment,’ he said, adding that the country’s top coal power generator NTPC had been tasked with testing this at some plants, and given funding support to do so.
By pairing coal plants with batteries, excess energy can be stored and released later, enabling plants to run steadily, cut costs and extend operational life, Prasad explained.
In line with this, NTPC recently issued a tender to install 1.7 GW of battery storage across 11 coal plants.
