India sees dramatic plunge in battery storage costs, ministry reports

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From ESS News

The Indian Ministry of Power said in a statement on Monday that the cost of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in India has dropped sharply over recent years.

Tariff-based competitive bidding during 2022–23 revealed costs of around INR 10.18/kWh ($0.11/kWh), assuming two full cycles per day. Recent tenders, however, indicate that BESS can now be installed at roughly INR 2.1/kWh ($0.023/kWh) – without viability gap funding (VGF) for the same usage pattern. Market trends suggest that storage is more likely to be utilised for 1.5 cycles per day, which corresponds to an effective cost of INR 2.8/kWh. By comparison, recent solar project tariffs are averaging around INR 2.5/kWh.

To support the expansion of battery storage, the Ministry of Power is administering multiple schemes. The first VGF scheme aims to deploy 13,220 MWh of BESS capacity with a budgetary support of ₹3,760 crore ($415 million). In June 2025, the Ministry launched a second VGF scheme for 30 GWh of BESS capacity, backed by ₹5,400 crore from the Power System Development Fund (PSDF).

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