How firm and dispatchable renewable energy is transforming India’s sustainable energy landscape

By 2030, India aims to source 50% of electric power from non-fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions by 45% from 2005 levels. To achieve this target, the 2023 National Electricity Plan by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has estimated the need for 486 GW of variable renewables (solar and wind). However, the high penetration of variable and intermittent renewable energy (RE) poses challenges such as grid balancing and underutilisation of the transmission system. These challenges can be solved through firm and dispatchable RE (FDRE) power, which is obtained by transforming the variable RE into FDRE through integration with energy storage systems (ESSs). Thus, as the name suggests, FDRE provides assured round-the-clock (RTC) power from green sources to consumers.