TERI highlights the need for forward looking regulatory regime for Discoms and State Regulators at Solar & Storage Expo 2024
Delivering the Inaugural Address of the Solar & Storage Expo 2024 Karnataka in Bengaluru on 13 August 2024, Mr Ajay Shankar, Distinguished Fellow, TERI opined that “India’s solar journey has been fascinating. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took the decision in 2009 that India should have a National Solar Mission, the solar power capacity in the country was barely a few hundred MW. The Mission was launched in 2010 with the highly ambitious goal of creating 20,000 MW of solar power capacity by 2022. Building on Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement at COP26 in Glasgow, India now has over 70,000 MW of solar power and we rank 4th in the world in solar power. The price of solar energy in India has declined from ₹17 per unit in 2010 to ₹2.5 in 2024. This kind of success is rare for India.”
Apt to the theme of the event, Mr Ajay Shankar revealed that solar energy in combination with storage solutions will enable provision of reliable supply of energy. He drew reference from TERI’s recent reports exploring the Storage Landscape. These include large scale storage at grid level through pump storage; concentrated solar power with molten salt; and batteries for decentralized storage. Emphasizing the importance of the State of Karnataka in the solar journey, Mr Ajay Shankar urged that Karnataka state has the potential to be the Indian leader in storage; leveraging pump storage projects like in Hampi.
Karnataka is rich in solar resources and solar energy in fact complements the conventional sources of energy in a large way. The State of Karnataka is blessed with about 240 to 300 sunny days with good solar radiation of 5.4 to 6.4kWh/m2/day. Karnataka was the first state to commission 3MW capacity utility scale solar project, in 2009 at Yelasandra of Kolar district. The Solar & Storage Expo 2024 Karnataka hosted a set of panel discussions and industry presentations, including signatories of Industry Charter. TERI was the knowledge partner for the event.