The Government of India has been making concerted efforts for developing energy storage technologies for managing the variable generation from renewable energy sources, including solar power. In this regard, an Expert Committee chaired by Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, has proposed draft National Energy Storage Mission that strives for leadership in the energy storage sector by encouraging manufacturing, deployment, innovation and cost reduction.

As per International Energy Agency’s report “Energy Storage – Tracking Clean Energy Progress”, the utility scale deployment for storage technology excluding pumped hydro storage in the year 2017 was 620 MWh and the cumulative energy storage volume including pumped hydro storage was 15.3 GWh. Australia, China, Japan, Germany, Korea and United States are the leading countries in deployment of energy storage technology.

Through various bilateral engagements, India has been encouraging technological cooperation on energy storage. A specific proposal on designing research programme and collaboration projects has been proposed under the India- United Kingdom Energy for Growth Partnership.

This was informed by Minister of State (I/C) for New and Renewable Energy and Power Shri R. K Singh in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

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RCJ/RP