The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) organized a high-level conference titled “Accelerating Renewable Energy and Storage Procurement for a Smoother Energy Transition” on 7 November 2025 at The Dome, Hotel Ambassador, New Delhi. The event brought together senior policymakers, utility leaders, developers, and technical experts to discuss innovative strategies for expediting India’s renewable energy (RE) and storage integration journey.
Held against the backdrop of India’s ambitious renewable energy and net-zero goals, the conference aimed to address key challenges and opportunities in renewable energy procurement, energy storage development, and transmission planning. The discussions centered on enabling policy and regulatory measures, financing mechanisms, and market design innovations necessary to build a flexible and resilient power system that supports India’s rapid energy transition.
The session began with a welcome address by A.K. Saxena, Senior Director at TERI, who set the context by outlining the conference’s key themes, including renewable energy procurement, transmission infrastructure, pumped storage projects (PSP), concentrated solar power (CSP), and the role of battery storage in maintaining grid stability.
Delivering the keynote address, Ghanshyam Prasad, Chairperson of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Government of India, stressed the importance of balancing renewable and thermal generation to ensure grid reliability. Citing recent grid management challenges in Rajasthan, he explained that surplus renewable generation can lead to imbalances and highlighted the need for viable storage technologies such as batteries and pumped storage systems, with the latter offering the additional advantage of providing inertia.
He also emphasized the importance of localized weather forecasting for accurate demand prediction, careful planning of transmission capacity, and the creation of state-level resource adequacy plans. Mr. Prasad further identified concentrated solar power (CSP) as a promising storage option within India’s clean energy transition strategy.
Manu Shrivastava, Additional Chief Secretary of the New and Renewable Energy Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh, shared insights from the state’s experience in renewable energy and storage procurement. He noted that Madhya Pradesh currently has 15.4 GW of operational renewable energy capacity and 40 GW under construction, including several hybrid projects combining solar and storage—such as 2,000 MW of solar with 1,000 MW of battery storage and 1,200 MW of solar with long-duration storage.
He also discussed innovative approaches like ensuring 95% peak-hour availability, performance-linked penalties, and storage-as-a-service models, along with solar-plus-storage partnerships with Uttar Pradesh. He emphasized the need for adaptable policy frameworks and strong inter-state cooperation to strengthen grid stability and ensure smooth renewable energy integration.
The inaugural session was followed by a series of thematic discussions focusing on critical aspects of renewable energy and storage deployment. The session on Transmission Issues, chaired by K. Ramanathan, Distinguished Fellow at TERI, featured contributions from experts from the CEA, Central Transmission Utility (CTU), and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The session concluded that India’s next phase of energy growth must not only focus on expanding generation and storage capacity but also on addressing transmission bottlenecks, improving grid infrastructure, and implementing market reforms.
A session on Pumped Storage Projects (PSP) explored strategies to scale up PSP capacity through supportive policies, financing mechanisms, and streamlined regulatory processes. The Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) discussion examined its potential role in India’s renewable energy mix in light of technological advancements and changing cost dynamics. The Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) session focused on enhancing grid flexibility, ensuring reliability, and improving market readiness for large-scale battery deployment.
During the discussions, Dr. Satya Priya Rath, Managing Director of Grid Corporation of Odisha Limited (GRIDCO), highlighted Odisha’s identification of 10–11 potential sites for closed-loop PSP feasibility studies. He emphasized the long lifespan of PSPs—ranging from 70 to 80 years—their inertia benefits, and reduced import dependency compared to batteries. He also noted current evacuation challenges and announced the opening of a national PSP portal until 16 November, aimed at encouraging private participation. Dr. Rath pointed out that the government’s new policy supports private investment in PSPs and exempts concurrence requirements for off-river projects.
In his concluding remarks, Ajay Shankar, Distinguished Fellow at TERI, outlined a roadmap for integrating renewable energy with various storage technologies such as CSP, PSP, and BESS. He emphasized the importance of efficiently managing surplus renewable energy and acknowledged that each storage technology has distinct benefits—BESS offers cost-effectiveness but relies on imports, PSP provides inertia and long operational life, while CSP can support multiple applications including hydrogen production, process heat, and agricultural drying.
He stressed the need to scale up CSP through targeted policy interventions and called for capacity-building efforts and supportive government frameworks to promote wider adoption of PSP and BESS. Drawing lessons from international examples such as China and France, he urged coordinated efforts to build a resilient and balanced renewable energy-plus-storage ecosystem in India.
The conference concluded with a Vote of Thanks delivered by Alekhya Datta, Director at TERI, who reaffirmed TERI’s ongoing commitment to supporting the government and industry in advancing the renewable energy and storage landscape. The insights and recommendations from the conference will be consolidated into a policy-oriented report, providing actionable strategies to strengthen India’s renewable energy and storage ecosystem and accelerate its transition toward a sustainable, low-carbon future.
