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India’s energy-storage project pipeline has slowed sharply in the first four months of FY27, with tendering declining 26% year-on-year to 8.4 GW during April-July from 11.4 GW, while awarded capacity plunged 65% to 2.4 GW from 6.9 GW in the year-ago period.
The slowdown in fresh awards comes even as deployment accelerates. India commissioned around 8,236 MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity during April-July, alongside 250 MW of pumped hydro storage. July alone saw approximately 710 MWh of ESS capacity commissioned.
According to a report by JMK Research & Analytics and IEEFA, standalone BESS remained the dominant procurement segment, accounting for 4.3 GW, or around 51% of total tendered capacity, while firm and dispatchable renewable energy contributed another 1.9 GW.
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Two-hour storage continued to dominate tenders at about 4,448 MW, although four-hour systems are gaining traction as distribution companies increasingly seek storage capable of shifting daytime renewable generation over longer non-solar peak periods.
July still saw significant fresh tendering activity. Authorities issued 1,707 MW/3,933 MWh of project-development storage tenders, including six BESS, two renewable-plus-storage and one FDRE tender. Standalone BESS accounted for around 65% of the capacity.
Separately, 1,025 MW of EPC storage capacity was tendered during the month, led by PowerGrid’s 750 MW/2,000 MWh standalone BESS procurement, which accounted for about 73% of the total. GAIL tendered a 600-MW solar project integrated with a 275 MW/550 MWh BESS.
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On the manufacturing side, around 6.35 GWh of downstream capacity entered operations in July, led by Waaree ESS’s 5.15-GWh container facility and Midwest Energy’s 1.2-GWh integration plant. But the report said “commercial cell manufacturing remains limited,” leaving the domestic BESS industry substantially dependent on imported cells as deployment scales.
The ministry of heavy industries has also tendered the remaining 10 GWh under the 50-GWh ACC battery PLI scheme, entirely for grid-scale storage. The programme requires domestic value addition of at least 25% within two years and 40% within five years.
TOPICSEnergyThis article was first uploaded on August twenty-nine, twenty twenty-six, at three minutes past one in the night. © The Indian Express (P) Ltd