India Approves $19 Billion Plan to Expand Renewable Energy and Battery Storage

India's cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved a roughly $19.4 billion program to expand the country's power grid for renewable energy and build out large-scale battery storage, according to Reuters.

Clearing the way for 135 gigawatts of clean power

The Green Energy Corridor Phase III scheme is built to solve a basic bottleneck: India has been adding solar and wind capacity faster than its grid can move that power to where it's needed. The program is designed to support the transmission of up to 135 gigawatts of renewable energy across India's states and union territories.

50 gigawatt-hours of battery storage

A big share of the roughly 1.86 trillion rupee budget — about 500 billion rupees — is earmarked for battery energy storage systems, which will store power from solar and wind farms for use when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. That storage is meant to ease congestion, cut curtailment during peak generation, and keep clean power available after dark.

Part of a bigger national target

The transmission work is expected to be completed by the 2032-33 financial year. It's one piece of India's broader push toward 900 gigawatts of non-fossil power generation capacity by 2035, as the country works to make renewables a larger share of a fast-growing energy demand.