Solar installations are galloping at such a frenetic pace that the attendant infrastructure, such as storage and evacuation, is struggling to keep up | Photo Credit: AMIT DAVE

An electricity supply-demand mismatch that pops up during the solar hours, with supply outstripping demand and necessitating curtailment of solar generation, has emerged in recent times as a niggling problem. In April, the country had to curtail 677 GWhr of electricity, which was much more than in the previous three months combined (399 GWhr); in May, it shot up further to 747 GWhr. This means that on each day of May, 24 GWhr of electricity had to be declined; that is as much energy as 1,000 MW of capacity working round the clock could have generated — but did not because there was no demand.

Solar installations are galloping at such a frenetic pace that the attendant infrastructure, such as storage and evacuation, is struggling to keep up. To be sure, a situation of comfort on the supply side looks better than one of chronic energy shortage that plagued the country a couple of decades back. But to many, curtailment seems wasteful. A recent paper produced by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council members, Sanjeev Sanyal and Satvik Dev, shines a light on this complex issue. To be sure, the issue the paper highlights and the solution it flags — storage — have been flagged and discussed before.

The paper seems to overlook some key points. It speaks of the “absurdity of solar curtailment”, which is indeed true — but it is sometimes more economical to give up than to store. The economic cost of storing energy could, at times, be higher than the cost of giving it up. Different elements of infrastructure rarely walk in lockstep with each other; the issue of curtailment might endure for a long time, and as long as it is within reason, it is acceptable. The paper also surprisingly fails to take note of efforts to push agriculture load into solar hours by feeder separation and solarisation. A note on the progress here and shortfalls would have been instructive for policy. That said, the paper does well to highlight the urgency of building enough storage capacity, while noting that there is progress in this direction. It notes that India has about 2.7 GW of storage capacity when it should, according to the rollout plan of the Central Electricity Authority, have 8.68 GW. However, it is equally true that almost all the upcoming power purchase tenders are for call for storage, either directly as a tender condition or indirectly by asking for ‘firm dispatchable renewable energy’ supply.

Storage apart, there are some useful measures whose implementation has been tardy — such as time-of-day (ToD) tariff and demand response (DR). Essentially, these have lagged because of the difficulties in installation of smart meters due to a bunch of reasons. The paper mentions ToD and DR but falls short of recommending remedies. The paper seems to suggest that building enough storage, both battery and pumped hydro, is the panacea, but it does not make economic sense to oversize storage to take in all the energy that solar produces. One practical answer is to build an international grid, but that is years away.

Published on July 12, 2026