Ayana & Greenko tie-up for India’s 1st power storage biz – EQ Mag Pro
The arrangement will help provide round-the-clock green energy to user industries and electricity distribution companies.
NEW DELHI : National Investment and Infrastructure Fund’s (NIIF) Ayana Renewable Power Pvt. Ltd. has partnered with Hyderabad-based Greenko Group to store 6-gigawatt hour (GWh) of power in hydro pump storage plants that Greenko is building at Pinnapuram in Andhra Pradesh, the companies said.
The arrangement will help provide round-the-clock green energy to user industries and electricity distribution companies (discoms). The idea is to use cheap green power during off-peak hours to raise water to a height and then release it into a lower reservoir to generate electricity when the demand for electricity goes up.
“In a first of its kind partnership, Greenko Group and Ayana Renewable Power Pvt. Ltd have entered into an arrangement to provide standalone storage capacity to develop firm and dispatchable RE solutions, including round-the-clock power supply of up to 1GW,” the firms said in a joint statement. Large storage facilities can help keep India’s power grids stable, given electricity is produced intermittently from clean energy sources such as solar and wind.
This comes against the backdrop of the Union budget including energy storage systems such as dense charging infrastructure and grid-scale battery systems in the harmonized list of infrastructure, making it easier for such projects to raise funds.
“This will be offered to various industries and distribution companies in India. Greenko Group has offered in total 6,000 MWhr of storage capacity including 1,500 MWhr of storage capacity in the first tranche from its unique Off Stream Closed-Loop Pumped Storage Project (OCPSP),” according to the statement.
Backed by GIC Holdings Pte Ltd, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Japan’s ORIX Corp., Greenko has India’s largest operational clean energy portfolio of 7.3 GW and is building 30 GWh of storage capacity as part of its plan to set up an energy storage cloud platform of 100 GWh. This comes amid a new ‘Energy Storage System’ (ESS) policy that has proposed no requirement for environment clearances for off-river pumped storage plants and no obligation for free power to the states concerned, as reported by Mint earlier.
India may also delicense building of standalone battery storage systems; allow their sale, lease or hire; and permit the sale of stored power through power purchase agreements and over exchanges, as part of the proposed ESS policy. Also, the electricity transmission cost while selling or buying electricity from these storages may be waived off, according to the ‘Discussion Paper on Policy on Energy Storage Systems’.
“The cooperation sets a template for storage transactions in the country and is in line with the focus of the ministry of power/ ministry of new and renewable energy to create a standalone storage market in India. Such integrated renewable energy and storage projects, offering solutions superior to conventional energy sources in terms of dispatchability and round-the-clock supply, are testimony to the maturity of the renewable sector in India,” according to the statement. CDC Group, UK’s development finance institution, and EverSource Capital managed Green Growth Equity Fund are other shareholders in Ayana, which has 1.19 GW of operational renewable energy capacity.
Source: livemint
