Policy incentives, business leadership, skilled workforce and inter-industry collaboration would be key to make India self-reliant in the energy storage space, the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) said.

IESA, at a conference held to commemorate the 4th World Energy Storage Day, highlighted the huge employment opportunity available in the country’s energy storage space.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a letter to IESA said that energy security and sufficiency are pivotal for self-reliant India. “We are constantly striving to ensure that electricity reaches everyone, there is sufficient electricity for everyone, and that our environment remains clean. We are also making sure that our resolve towards clean and renewable energy is taken care of in every aspect of life,” he said in the letter.

Rahul Walawalkar, president, IESA, "India presents a significant opportunity for stationary energy storage technologies. In the next 5 years, we are entering into an unprecedented area, where thermal plants will have to pay down 30 per cent which is not an ideal situation.”

“At the same time, we do expect that the market for e-vehicles is set to pick up beyond 2022-24. We are coming up with a new report on e-mobility."

Walawalkar added that due to determined efforts by various ministries in the last five years, energy storage has picked up rapidly and the technology advancements have also been accelerated.

"As the event highlighted, there is also a need for the right policy and regulatory support, beyond announcements. These initiatives will boost the local ecosystem, make India a self-reliant economy for energy storage and become the global benchmark," he said.

"We must focus on building capacity for integrating existing projects and making India a global hub of innovation and research and development (R&D). We urge the Indian business leaders to take a lead in terms of investing in the future,” Walawalkar said, adding that the coming of the coronavirus pandemic has made the globe more aware of the environment..