India runs 5.3 GWh of batteries and plans 185 GWh — a Gujarat flow battery shows the gap
Victoria Shinder1 min readTwo pieces of Indian storage news from the same week, both reported by Energy-Storage.news, sit at opposite ends of the same problem.
The national picture came from Prashant Bhamu, deputy director of integrated resources planning at the Central Electricity Authority, speaking at the Energy Storage Summit India 2026 (https://www.energy-storage.news/india-has-5-3gwh-of-operational-bess-with-185gwh-under-development-cea-official-says). India has about 5.3 GWh of operating battery storage and 185 GWh under development. The CEA's planning points to 236 GWh of storage needed by 2031-32 and 888 GWh by 2035-36, roughly 80 GW of batteries and 94 GW of pumped hydro. The viability-gap funding scheme, budgeted at INR 90 billion, ended up supporting 13.2 GWh against an initial expectation of 4 GWh as costs fell; with a separate 30 GWh scheme, 43.2 GWh is supported. Storage obligations for distribution utilities rose from 1% to 4% of demand. Bhamu named transmission connectivity, project delivery and cancelled bids as the challenges.
The project-level picture came from Gujarat (https://www.energy-storage.news/indias-delectrik-systems-awarded-120mwh-long-duration-vanadium-flow-battery-contract-in-gujarat). Delectrik Systems, with EPC partner Bondada Engineering, won a 20 MW/120 MWh, six-hour vanadium flow battery tendered by Gujarat Industries Power Company. It will sit at GIPCL's gas plant in Vadodara — 310 MW of combined-cycle units idle since November 2021 because of fuel costs — reusing the site's grid connection, and is approved by the state buyer GUVNL as a pilot.
What it means
Read together, the gap is not money or policy but conversion: 185 GWh in development against 5.3 GWh running. The Gujarat project shows one way to shorten the path — put storage where a grid connection already exists and is unused. Every idle thermal site with a substation is a candidate, and India has many.