BATTERY LOW

India produces enough green energy to power many of its largest cities yet lacks the storage to use it efficiently. A nation blazing forward must leap ahead in battery technology to stay on course

- Aditi Ray Chowdhury

Curled up inside a blanket on a cold winter night in Delhi, yearning for some warmth, it is easy to forget how bad the Delhi summers were this past year. Through April, May and June of 2024, the average temperature in India's capital was over 40°C. Air-conditioners ran without rest at offices and homes that could afford them. On May 29, Delhi suffered its worst summer day on record. The temperature soared to 52.9°C. Two days later, power demand peaked at a baffling 250GW, nearly 15GW more than power authorities had projected.

Yet, nothing happened. There were no big outages reported. Yes, the Union power ministry let all thermal power plants run at full capacity. But that was that. And that was a pleasant surprise. Only 12 years ago, in July of 2012, India had suffered the largest blackout in modern history. Roughly 620mn people, around 9% of the world population, were left without power for 13 hours after the northern and eastern power grids collapsed due to overload.

A number of things have changed in India's power supply infrastructure in these 12 years. One of them is the unification of the power transmission network, which allows the grid operator to shift load from thermal to nuclear, solar, wind and hydro from one corner to the other. The other, and more important step, has been the increase in the ability to produce renewable energy.

India produces over 213GW renewable energy (up from just over 187GW in 2023) leveraging several natural energy sources as of 2024. This ability takes the country forward in realising its net-zero emissions goal. But to actually realise that goal and meet the ever-increasing power demand of the fifth-largest economy in the world, the country needs to figure out at least one thing more: storing the green energy it produces.