India will manage to integrate 175 GW renewable energy into power grid by 2022: report

New Delhi: The unpredictability that a massive rush of renewable energy could bring to a nation’s power grid is a technological nightmare. But a new report released on Thursday says it is possible to balance the country’s grid even when 175 gigawatt (GW) of clean energy will be part of the energy mix by 2022 under the world’s largest clean energy expansion programme.

Union minister for power, coal, new and renewable energy Piyush Goyal released the report, ‘Pathways to Integrate 175 Gigawatts of Renewable Energy into India’s Electricity Grid.

“It is time for the people of India to get ready and embrace the change with a new mindset of a new grid for a new India, which is ready to integrate large amount of renewable energy,” Goyal said at the event.

The study said that, “power system balancing with 100 GW solar and 60 GW wind is achievable at 15-minute operational timescales with minimal reduction in renewable energy output.”

“India’s current coal-dominated power system has the inherent flexibility to accommodate the variability associated with the targeted renewable energy capacities,” the report added.

The study developed under the US-India bilateral program ‘Greening the Grid’, confirms the technical and economic viability of integrating 175 GW of renewable energy into India’s power grid by 2022 and identifies future course of actions that are favorable for such integration.