Markets & Policy

The new policy has already applied, and impacts billions in funding from the European Investment Bank on renewable projects including standalone and co-located storage.

India and the European Union (EU) have launched a €15.2 million (INR 169 crore) joint funding programme to advance recycling technologies for electric vehicle (EV) batteries, under the India–EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) Working Group 2 on Green and Clean Energy Technologies.

Escalating Middle East tensions and global energy supply risks are accelerating Europe’s shift toward solar and storage, particularly in commercial, industrial, and utility-scale segments where energy security, resilience, and price stability are becoming central investment drivers. At the same time, expanding manufacturing capacity in China and India is redirecting surplus solar and storage supply toward Europe, creating a highly competitive and increasingly selective market where long-term success depends on quality, reliability, ESG alignment, and strategic market positioning.

While a significant share of state-run energy firms’ current fossil fuel capital expenditure is tied to ongoing projects, new and incremental investments can be progressively rebalanced toward clean energy, says Deepak Sharma, a consultant at the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

Renewable energy is abundant but intermittent. Demand is growing but uneven. Infrastructure exists but is often misaligned with where and when power is needed. In this environment, the grid has become more than a passive network; it is an active balancing system. Its resilience will determine whether the energy transition delivers stability or introduces volatility.

For years, the battery energy storage (BESS) story has followed a familiar script: costs fall, deployment accelerates, economics improve. Even when cell costs rose and system prices briefly flattened during the 2021-22 lithium price spike, the narrative largely held. Paola Perez Peña, senior principal analyst at S&P Global Energy, examines why the latest jump in lithium prices has only had limited impacts on overall BESS costs so far.

A new briefing note by Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) finds that India’s imports of key energy transition minerals and their compounds are highly concentrated, underscoring significant supply risks and the importance of diversification to enhance supply security.

India’s renewable energy push is inherently decentralized. Solar parks in Rajasthan, wind farms in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, and hybrid projects across states are often located far from consumption centers. Bridging these geographical gaps requires robust, resilient, and future ready transmission network. Without it, even the most ambitious generation targets risk underutilization.

Clean energy subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs) represent only 10% of India’s total energy subsidies. Though gradually expanding, these remain vulnerable to global oil price shocks due to structural fiscal dependence on oil and gas revenues. 

Pace Digitek Ltd has partnered with NEC XON Systems, South Africa, to market, distribute and deploy its grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) and related energy solutions across South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and Mauritius.