Page 7 - AsiaElec Week 11 2023

AsiaElec HYDROPOWER AsiaElec

Pumped hydro eyed to help with

renewables integration

INDIA PLANS are afoot in India to put in place 18 GW Sources say that New Delhi is only now starting
of pumped hydro storage by as soon as 2032. to consider expansion of this long-ignored power
In a missive issued by the Ministry of Power, source in India with tenders on storage develop-
it was revealed that Indian government policy ment projects recently being issued.
is increasingly looking at utilising power from Crucial to many of the projections being
hydro projects around the nation in order to help played out in government meetings and making
improve the integration of overall renewable pumped storage a preferential form of potential The government
energy across the national grid. energy retention over battery storage is the lack
Incorporating a system of pumps operated of any major imported materials or potential for says that 26
at periods when demand on the national grid required materials to run out in the long term.
is lower than usual to send water to higher and According to India’s Central Electricity further projects
higher elevations, the water being moved is then Authority, the country would need around
used to generate power at times of peak need. 18.8 GW of pumped hydro storage in addition amounting to
In data released by the ministry, there are cur- to a further 51.5 GW of 5-hour battery storage 26.6 GW of
rently eight such hydro-backed power storage capability to be able to move forward with the
programmes in the country amounting to a com- integration of an estimated 500 GW of other total capacity
bined 4.7 GW of capacity. renewables capacity by the early years of the
An additional 2.8 GW is also currently under next decade. have also been
construction. Leading the development of such projects in
The government says that 26 further projects India has been Greenko Energy. allocated to
amounting to 26.6 GW of total capacity have The Hyderabad-based renewable power gener- individual state
also been allocated to individual state authorities ator has already made a name for itself in pumped
around India. storage developments on the back of deals with a authorities.
The total already in play, under construction number of big-name industrial agencies.
or allocated, however, is only around a third of In doing so it has put in place multiple agree-
the estimated 108 GW of total capacity potential ments on 24/7 supplies of renewable energy to
from pumped storage across India, according to help carry pumped storage options in India to a
the central government. never before seen level.™

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