The Government of India plans to increase renewable electricity capacity to 175 GW by 2022 and to 450 GW by 2030, but even faster growth will be needed in the following decades to meet ongoing growth in demand and reach climate targets. To meet these targets, the pace of development of renewable energy projects is set to increase significantly over the next decade. However, the challenges with integrating higher capacities of renewable energy include the increasing variability of hourly demand, increasing ramping requirements due to the impact of solar on net demand, short-term frequency variations, and local voltage issues.
A recent report by International Energy Agency in collaboration with NITI Aayog highlights that solving these problems will involve building power system flexibility in renewables-rich Indian states, including demand-side flexibility, power plant flexibility, storage (pumped-storage hydro and batteries), and grid flexibility, as well as policy, market, and regulatory solutions that can be implemented in the short to medium term until 2030.
Read the report here
