India Summit Puts Solar Plus Storage At Heart Of Transition

• At New Delhi’s REconnect Summit, policymakers and developers spotlight solar-plus-storage as essential to India’s 2030 renewables push and grid reliability.

India’s clean-energy conversation took a decisive turn at the REconnect Summit in New Delhi, where speakers converged on a clear message: meeting national targets will hinge on pairing solar with battery storage. The gathering underscored how quickly the debate has moved from “how much solar” to “how to make it dispatchable.”

Officials pointed to the country’s 2030 objectives and stressed the need to smooth midday surpluses and evening peaks. Batteries, they argued, turn intermittent output into a reliable resource, enable time-of-day tariffs, and reduce curtailment that erodes project economics. Several states have already issued tenders requiring co-located battery energy storage systems (BESS) alongside new photovoltaic capacity, with long-term offtake contracts that help derisk capex.

Developers highlighted two enablers: clearer market signals and local supply chains. On the first, regulators are advancing guidelines for ancillary services and capacity-like products that reward flexibility. On the second, India’s Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes for cells and modules are expanding domestic manufacturing, which could ease currency risk and procurement bottlenecks for both PV and batteries.

Banks are warming up, too. Financiers at the summit said hybrid projects with contracted storage services are becoming easier to model, provided warranties and performance guarantees are robust. Standardization around augmentation and end-of-life plans is also improving bankability.

The challenges are familiar: grid upgrades must keep pace, permitting timelines need discipline, and interconnection queues remain long in fast-growing states. But momentum is building. Speakers noted growing corporate demand for round-the-clock clean power, which aligns naturally with solar-plus-storage profiles.

If policy stability endures—and transmission buildout continues—India could emerge as a proving ground for hybridization at scale. The outcome matters beyond national borders: successful frameworks here could be exported to other emerging markets seeking affordable, dependable decarbonization.