New Delhi: The India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) on Friday launched a platform aimed at helping more than 300 commercial and industrial (C&I) consumers take up battery energy storage systems (BESS) within three years. The industry body's president, Debmalya Sen, said the platform is built around the specific problems these consumers face.
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"The BESS for C&I platform is designed to address the unique challenges faced by commercial and industrial energy consumers as battery storage becomes essential for grid flexibility and business resilience," Sen said in a statement.
Called BESS for C&I, the platform will run monthly sessions starting in October. According to IESA's statement, each session will bring industry, developers and policymakers together to discuss how storage is deployed, what it costs and returns, and which practices work best. C&I consumers will also get a dedicated workgroup of their own, which is free to join.
IESA plans to take these discussions beyond a single venue. Through IESA Connect, the alliance will hold them in cities and industrial clusters across the country. The aim, it said, is for C&I consumers to have a say in policy, standards and safety, rather than only buying the technology.
IESA said C&I battery storage capacity in India has grown from 40 MWh to 650 MWh. It projects capacity to reach close to 4 GWh by financial year (FY) 2027. Even so, the alliance said the segment still faces significant obstacles.
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Demand may be picking up, but IESA said several factors are still holding back wider adoption. Upfront costs are high, regulations are still changing, and financing options are few. Many users also lack awareness of the technology. The alliance said it introduced BESS for C&I to address these gaps and support the market's next stage of growth.