BSES powering Delhi with battery storage, digital innovation

BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd has successfully installed South Asia’s first commercially deployed 40-megawatt-hour regulatory-approved project at the service station at the 11 kV voltage level.

- Avinash Kumar

BSES has redefined Delhi's power landscape, reducing Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses from over 50 per cent to 6.61 per cent through digital innovation and smart metering. Serving 8.26 million consumers, BRPL and BYPL together ensure 24/7 reliable electricity, handling peak demands of 3,809 MW and 1,882 MW, respectively, with robust infrastructure and operational excellence.

Bridging Demand-Generation Mismatch with BESS

As India pushes toward its ambitious renewable energy target of 500 GW by 2030, storage technologies have become crucial. A core challenge faced by utilities like BSES is the misalignment between solar energy generation and peak electricity demand. Specifically, in BRPL, the load profile does not coincide with the solar regeneration curve. This mismatch underscores the need for demand-side management or robust energy storage solutions.

To address this, BSES Yamuna Power Limited has installed two significant Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) with capacities of 20 MW and 40 MW, respectively. These systems help store excess renewable energy and discharge it when demand spikes, ensuring grid stability. Funded by the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, the project is implemented on a BOOT (Build, Own, Operate, Transfer) model with a 12-year operating life and two charge-discharge cycles per day. This delivers an effective storage capacity of 20-40 megawatt-hours daily.