Energy Storage

The National Solar Energy Federation has asked the State to consider a 15-year electricity duty exemption, transmission charges on the entire capacity instead of per-kWh basis, and delinking of the secondary RE source capacity from the rated power capacity of the primary RE source to promote hybrid project deployment.

The use of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells as backup power generation in solar microgrids could drive down costs and improve efficiency, according to an international group of researchers. They have proposed a new energy management system that could be ideal for hybrid solar-hydrogen microgrids in remote locations.

Scientists in Japan demonstrated a hard-carbon electrode that can greatly increase the capacity of a sodium-ion battery. With further work on the long-term performance, the discovery could make sodium-ion batteries better able to compete on energy density with their lithium-ion counterparts.

Researchers in Finland have demonstrated the technical feasibility of an off-grid residential PV system combined with short-term battery storage and seasonal hydrogen storage. The proposed model is applicable only to northern climates, as higher levels of solar radiation in southern locations would mean a reduced need for seasonal storage. It was tested in an existing single-family house in Finland with a 21 kW rooftop array and a ground source 6 kW heat pump.

The floating restaurants and boats shall have on-board Li-ion battery storage to continuously power main motors and utility loads for six hours on a single charge. The batteries shall be charged by solar power and AC current from the shore to ensure the loads’ uninterrupted operation.

With this, green hydrogen (hydrogen produced using renewable energy) would become cost-competitive with hydrogen from fossil fuels in certain industrial applications such as ammonia production for fertilizers.

The selected applicants are required to execute projects across categories like solar-powered cold storage, solar water pumps, solar-powered reverse-osmosis water systems and off-grid solar systems for primary health care centers on a turnkey basis. The work includes engineering, supply, erection, commissioning along with maintenance support for three years.

TP Renewable Microgrid has installed an aggregate 3 MW of solar microgrid capacity with its 100th project commissioned in Ratnapur, Uttar Pradesh. 

Gopal Lal Somani, a former director at the Jaipur-based Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation Ltd (RRECL), says distributed solar systems with storage are the key to achieving India’s mission of supplying clean energy at an affordable cost to all. In this article, he dwells on the benefits and techno-commercial feasibility of these systems for the nation.

A new report says that the nation would require an estimated annual battery capacity of 158 GWh to realize its 2030 electric vehicle (EV) adoption target. Meeting this potential demand would require investments exceeding INR 85,900 crore (US$ 12.3 billion) in case battery manufacturing is 100% indigenized.