India's Grid Gears Up to Face 'Too Much' Green Energy Risk

With the rampant addition of renewable energy (RE) capacity over the past two decades, the grid is now devising ways to handle "too much RE".

- SHREYA JAI

RE sources — which include solar, wind, small hydro, and others — are intermittent in nature, and their sudden spikes and drops can cause massive grid disruptions, including outages.

To address this, arms of the Union Ministry of Power — Grid Controller of India (Grid-India), the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), and the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) — are drafting various plans to schedule, forecast, and manage RE efficiently, while keeping thermal power as the base supply.

The current RE capacity stands at 224 gigawatt (Gw), with India's total power generation capacity at 470 Gw.

Managing RE to avoid blackouts

Last month, Spain faced a power outage credited to a sudden drop in RE in its grid, which relies heavily on green power. Senior executives said while India's RE capacity has not reached such levels yet, it has the potential to cause imbalances in the grid.

As India still lacks large-scale RE storage, managing infirm RE sources becomes difficult when they are fed into the grid. Senior executives at GridIndia said they are looking at a twopronged approach.