August 26, 2021: Attendees at a webinar hosted by ILZDA on August 25 reiterated the growing need for new storage technologies to meet India’s booming future demand — which is predicted to grow to more than 500GWh by 2032.
The ‘Advanced Lead-Acid Battery — Magic Bullet for India’s Energy Needs’ webinar heard from a ‘galaxy of experts’ introduced by L Pugazhenthy, known to the industry as Pug, who called on the business to recognize the benefits of advanced lead batteries in helping plug the storage gap.
The contribution of renewable energy to the Indian electricity mix is predicted to grow from 14% in 2016 to 60% in 2025, according to CRISIL research director, for energy & commodities, Rahul Prithiani — and the amount of storage required will not be met by pumped hydro alone.
“There are opportunities for multiple technologies to exist together,” Prithiani told the online zoom meeting. “Pumped hydro is currently leading the race but batteries with low response time have the highest potential.
“Commercialized technologies like lithium-ion are likely to be more focused towards the mobility sector due to the storage necessity and high adoption of EVs. But the lack of resources and high cost of lithium-ion supports the case for other technologies.”
One of the key areas that advanced lead-acid batteries can exploit is materials — and if lead could make up for its poorer cycle life, it could be competitive, he said.
“If lead battery cycle life is improved with technological innovations, India can leverage the well-defined battery recycling value chain that is already in place,” he said.
“Moreover, there are no constraints on availability of raw materials in the Indian market, leading to reduced dependence on imports.”
Improvements could be achieved with advances such as the UltraBattery, carbon additives and BMS interventions, said Subhankar Chakraborty, head of product development for Exide Industries.
“The primary limitation is the space when we talk about megawatt hours,” he said. “We need to work out how we can get the lead battery to an advanced stage and fit for the cause — for energy storage systems and renewable energy harnessing.
“Grid services also play a major role in the ES scenario, as well as renewable integration and microgrids.”
One commentator later noted that because widespread availability of lead batteries in the home — for power during outages — would mean that many homeowners would find it easier to attract solar panels into their home energy mix.
Consortium for Battery Innovation director Alistair Davidson said the organization had begun to work on a new technical road map, and that work was on track to achieve two main targets — a dynamic charge acceptance of 2A/Ah and 5,000 cycles by 2022.
“There is a huge opportunity for lead to take a large proportion of the energy storage market,” he said.
“People don’t automatically think about lead until we explain to them, and there’s a real push from CBI in demonstrating the performance of lead, particularly in energy storage.”
The Indian government is serious about its energy storage needs, introducing a raft of policies in line with aims to Aatma Nirbar Bharat — ‘Make in India’ — which include a $2.5 billion incentive scheme and tenders to improve and increase storage.
