Policy intervention is needed for renewable energy storage Expert

“Only 15-20 per cent of the grid capacity can be pushed with renewable. The present grid is of about 3.5 GW and in that case we can absorb only 70,000 MW in the system. But the national target is 1.7 GW renewable by 2022 of which 1 GW is from solar itself”

Policy intervention is needed for renewable energy storage capacity in all grid connected renewable projects to tackle the potential problem of limited capability of the grid, a solar energy expert said.

“Only 15-20 per cent of the grid capacity can be pushed with renewable. The present grid is of about 3.5 GW and in that case we can absorb only 70,000 MW in the system. But the national target is 1.7 GW renewable by 2022 of which 1 GW is from solar itself,” International Solar Innovation Council chairman S P Gon Chaudhuri said at The Bengal Chamber organised Infrastructure Summit.

“Either we need to have storage or increase the grid capacity in order to manage the additional 1 GW of renewable energy we will be left with after pushing into the grid and most of it can be distributed solar,” he said.

Chaudhuri said several committees involving multi-lateral agencies, department of science and technology and ministry of non-conventional and renewable energy are working to find out the storage problem.

The government was also evaluating pump storage hydel power as alternative to storage to utilise the renewable capacity, the solar power expert said.