New Delhi: NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN) will synchronise its first Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project, of 500 MWh, within the next few days, and commercial operation will start after that, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Somes Bandyopadhyay said on Thursday. According to Bandyopadhyay, the project will mark NVVN's entry into the battery energy storage space. He was speaking on the sidelines of the 18th India Coal Summit, organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.
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"In a few days time, 500 MWh will be synchronised. Commercial operation will start," Bandyopadhyay said.
More capacity would follow the first project, Bandyopadhyay said, though he gave the next figure only tentatively. "Then afterwards maybe battery storage capacity of 1,000 MWh is expected to come up this year," he said. He also pointed to support from the Centre. "The government has given us some scheme of 3,000 MWh," he said.
He then explained how NVVN was structuring these projects. "In different modes, we are owning all the systems, but we are doing through market components," he said.
NVVN, a wholly owned subsidiary of NTPC, has been procuring battery storage through competitive tenders since 2024. Under these tenders, developers set up standalone BESS and make them available to NVVN on demand for charging and discharging. NVVN then signs a battery energy storage purchase agreement (BESPA) with each winning developer. Under the terms of its September 2024 tender, NVVN could use that capacity for sale on power exchanges, for bilateral sale to distribution companies or commercial and industrial consumers, or for ancillary services.
Storage adds a new line to what has been a power trading business. NVVN holds a Category I trading licence, the highest category, from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC). According to its annual return to the CERC for 2023-24, it traded 20,727 million units (MU) in inter-state bilateral transactions and 13,894 MU on power exchanges that year. It also traded about 3.1 lakh renewable energy certificates.
The Centre's main financial support for battery storage has come through Viability Gap Funding (VGF). The Union Cabinet approved the first VGF scheme on September 6, 2023, with an outlay of Rs 9,400 crore, including budgetary support of Rs 3,760 crore. The scheme offered up to 40 percent of capital cost for 4,000 MWh of BESS to be developed by 2030-31. As battery costs fell, approvals under it grew. By June 2025, 13.2 GWh had been approved, according to the Ministry of Power.
That month, the ministry announced a second tranche. It set aside Rs 5,400 crore from the Power System Development Fund (PSDF) to support 30 GWh of BESS, at Rs 18 lakh per MWh. Of this, 25 GWh went to 15 states and 5 GWh to NTPC.
According to the Central Electricity Authority's (CEA) estimates, India would need 37 GWh of BESS by 2027 and 236 GWh by 2031-32.
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Installations have picked up sharply this year. India added 8.2 GWh of battery storage in the first half of 2026, compared with 98.4 MWh in the same period of 2025. That took the country's cumulative installed capacity to 9.3 GWh at the end of June.