AES India and Mitsubishi Corporation have begun the construction of India’s first utility-scale energy storage system in the national capital. The 10 MW energy storage system will serve the grid operated by Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd (TPDDL), located in New Delhi’s Rohini area.

The 10 MW project will benefit more than 7 million customers by enabling better peak load management, adding system flexibility, and enhancing the grid reliability.

AES and Mitsubishi Corporation will own the Advancion storage solution, which is being supplied by Fluence. Fluence is an energy storage technology and services company owned by Siemens and US-based AES Corporation, a global power company of which the AES India is a subsidiary.

Commenting on the achievement, Mark Green, the president of AES’ Eurasia Strategic Business Unit, said, “The deployment of cutting-edge energy storage technology in India shows the commitment we have to the country. Adding Fluence’s Advancion energy storage solution will allow us to continue to contribute to the modernization and enhancement of the electricity system in India”.

“The first of its kind system will help to create a business case for the deployment of storage in India, to address challenges in the areas of peak load management, system flexibility, frequency regulation and reliability on the network. This project will provide a platform to demonstrate energy storage as a critical distribution asset and help to balance distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar,” Praveer Sinha, the chief executive officer and managing director of Tata Power-DDL said in a media statement.

This development is significant for the country’s renewable energy growth trajectory. The country’s transmission infrastructure is not yet well equipped to tackle the intermittent renewable power generation. Numerous completed large-scale projects were unable to be commissioned during the fourth-quarter of 2017 due to delays in grid infrastructure and evacuation issues.

Therefore, apart from the development of new infrastructure facilities, the augmentation and strengthening of the present infrastructure is the need of the hour. The construction of this 10 MW energy storage solution will help reduce the congestion of the grid and help deliver more affordable, clean energy and enabling new sources of revenue from frequency regulation and other grid services.

Image credit: Fluence