Hyderabad: Solar energy saving batteries may be entering the Indian markets soon, putting state-owned power distribution companies more into trouble.
With the Centre’s concerted efforts to encourage solar energy, in Telangana state alone, solar power production has increased from five per cent to 22 per cent in three years. This has also given a huge boost to industries and commercial establishments that are increasingly preferring solar power options.
However, it is still a long way from utopia for the industries. Primarily because there is no way, so far, to harness solar energy in large quantities to help them tide over their night time requirements.
Now a Chinese company, Yinlong, is offering batteries to store solar energy. Company officials held lengthy discussions with energy minister Jagadish Reddy but a decision has not been made so far. The batteries are costly now, at Rs 5 crore per MW, but experts say the cost is likely to come down in the near future.
In the past, it needed Rs 17 crore to produce a MW of solar power; that has fallen to about Rs 5 crore now.
Two companies are in the forefront manufacturing these storage batteries: Yinlong of China and Telsa of the US.
Once these batteries enter the Indian market, government-owned power utilities will face serious problems in selling their electricity.
A senior officer of the energy department said, “Government-owned power utilities are facing financial problems due to the reforms undertaken by the Centre. These reforms are enabling consumers to buy power at cheaper rates and government discoms are struggling to sell their power. Once the big energy storage batteries enter the scene, the discoms will have to face further problems.”
The fear is that companies will simply use the batteries to store power during the day and use it at night, without depending on the electricity distributing utilities.
