India's Solar Glut Means that BESS/Storage is now the Centre of the Energy Transition

Storage-backed renewable projects could command stronger long-term strategic value because they improve energy time-shifting, reduce curtailment risk, and enhance revenue visibility across peak-demand periods.

July 02, 2026. By News Bureau

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articles

Rupal Gupta

TrueRE Oriana Power Ltd.

Energy transition

Battery Energy Storage Systems

BESS

Solar glut

Non-fossil fuel energy

Renewable energy

Solar energy

Ambition and execution excellence, that’s how I would define the last few years in the Indian renewable energy journey. When India announced its target of 500 GW of non-fossil fuel energy capacity by 2030, many viewed it as highly ambitious. Today, that target appears increasingly achievable. The conversation has moved from whether India will build renewable energy capacity at scale to whether the rest of the energy ecosystem can keep pace with that growth.

India’s total installed solar capacity has now reached approximately 157 GW. This success also brings with it a new challenge. That of a “solar glut” during daytime hours. Solar glut refers to a situation where the generation of renewable energy exceeds grid absorption capacity and demand, thus resulting in lower power prices and curtailment risks.

The recent near-zero pricing during solar hours, means renewable generation has achieved scale, but the rest of the system has to catch up. Price signals emerging across power markets are clearly indicating that flexibility is becoming as valuable as generation itself.

The solution is not to slow down renewable growth. The solution is to build the infrastructure that allows renewable energy to deliver value whenever and wherever it is needed.

For decades, power systems were designed around predictable, dispatchable generation. Renewable energy is changing that paradigm. As solar and wind contribute a larger share of electricity generation, grid infrastructure must evolve from simply transmitting power to actively managing variability.

The value of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) is not only in storing power, it is in making renewable power usable at the right time. Otherwise, we risk creating a system where power is abundant and inexpensive during periods of low demand, but costly when consumers need it most. In this scenario, storage is becoming the balancing layer of India’s renewable system and a strategic infrastructure asset that strengthens energy security, improves grid resilience, and supports industrial growth.

Storage-backed renewable projects could command stronger long-term strategic value because they improve energy time-shifting, reduce curtailment risk, and enhance revenue visibility across peak-demand periods. This will result in an active grid management infrastructure that is capable of providing balancing services, frequency regulation, ramping support, and peak-load optimisation. And with the falling battery storage prices over the last few years, it is now economically feasible as well.

Across the world, and in India, we are already noticing a rising demand for Solar + BESS projects. Countries that scale storage infrastructure early could gain a meaningful advantage in industrial competitiveness by offering more stable, reliable, and cost-efficient clean power to manufacturing, AI, and data centre ecosystems. The momentum behind storage deployment is encouraging, but accelerating adoption will require continued support through market design, ancillary service frameworks, transmission planning, and long-term procurement mechanisms.

The renewable energy sector is also witnessing a shift in how projects are evaluated. Historically, value was measured largely by installed capacity and generation potential. Going forward, the ability to deliver power during high-value demand periods will become equally important. As market structures evolve, storage-backed assets are likely to attract greater investor interest because they offer enhanced operational flexibility, improved revenue certainty, and stronger long-term competitiveness in increasingly dynamic power markets.

The next phase of India's energy transition will be defined by how intelligently we use renewable energy, and not by how much capacity we build.

India has already demonstrated its ability to scale renewable energy at an unprecedented pace, now it’s to build an equally ambitious storage ecosystem that unlocks the full value of that clean energy revolution. Renewables created the opportunity. Storage will determine how much of it we capture.

- Rupal Gupta, Founder, MD and CEO, TrueRE Oriana Power