Storage, batteries and electric mobility

Prelims and Mains

Storage does the firming a weather driven grid needs, holding the midday surplus until the evening peak, but it still costs more than the coal or solar power it displaces. Public money is therefore going into both the batteries on the grid and the factories that would make their cells in India.

• Viability gap funding covers 13.8 GWh of battery storage, with a further 30 GWh under the Power System Development Fund.
• The production linked incentive scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cells targets 50 GWh of cell making capacity in India.

Prelims and Mains

Solar power arrives in the afternoon and demand peaks after dark, and the oldest way to carry it across those hours is to carry water uphill.

• A pumped storage project pumps water uphill when power is cheap and releases it through turbines when demand peaks, so it stores energy rather than generating it.
• Pumping costs more power than the plant returns, which makes a pumped storage project a net consumer of electricity and a store of value only when the price gap is wide enough.
• The Karnataka High Court froze the 2,000 MW Sharavathi pumped storage project, which lies entirely inside the Sharavathi Valley Lion-Tailed Macaque Wildlife Sanctuary.
• An expert committee under the National Board for Wildlife had recommended against it.
• Katlekan's forest there holds endemics such as the Katlekan marsh nut and the Gund day gecko.