
India’s National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) and Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation (APGENCO) have signed a joint venture agreement to develop pumped storage projects, Energetica India reports.
The joint venture will focus on Andhra Pradesh State, with two projects already in the pipeline: the 1 GW Yaganti pumped storage project and the 800 MW Rajupalem pumped storage project. The companies signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) last year, agreeing to set up the JV.
The JV is meant to help achieve India’s national objective of achieving 500 GW of installed clean energy capacity by 2030 and realizing net zero by 2070.
“The [JV] company shall be incorporated with an initial paid-up capital to be subscribed in the ratio of 50:50 by NHPC and APGENCO, respectively,” NHPC said in a regulatory filing. “The company shall have an initial authorized share capital of INR 1 crore divided into 10 lakh equity shares of the face value of INR 10 each.”
NHPC’s total installed capacity is 7,097.2 MW of renewable power (including wind and solar), through its 25 power stations, including 1,520 MW through subsidiaries. APGENCO is an undertaking of the government of Andhra Pradesh for the implementation of pumped storage and renewable projects in the state.
Last year, the Government of India’s Ministry of Power released Guidelines to Promote Development of Pump Storage Projects. Citing the increasing presence of variable and intermittent renewable energy sources like solar and wind in the mix, the report said, “This presents a grid-level challenge for stability and a need for addressing the temporal considerations in power availability. Storage and ancillary services would be the attributes that require incentivization in the power system to ensure appropriate capacity.”
Thus, comprehensive storage guidelines were developed to set the direction of developments in this regard. “Amongst the various technologies available for addressing this requirement of storage and ancillary services, Pumped Storage Projects (PSPS) are clean, MW scale, domestically available, time tested and internationally accepted.”
The long-term approach to the development of pumped storage projects will be driven by various factors regarding the requirement of the grid to achieve the energy transition, the report said. The Central Electricity Authority estimated the country will require 26.7 GW of pumped storage and 47.2 GW of battery energy storage (5 hours) to integrate the renewable energy capacity envisaged until 2032. The pumped storage capacity requirement may further increase if the cost of BESS does not come down as expected. CEA said it will continue modelling and forecasting the energy demand and energy mix over the long term and providing an indication of the probable requirement of the various forms of storage.
One of the annexes to the report contains a list of 55 identified pumped storage sites across the country, with total generating capacity of 73,420 MW.