Hyderabad- based Greenko to offer energy storage through a cloud platform

Storage to be open access for any consumer to use, can own and invest in green energy projects

Hyderabad-based Greenko Group, which recently launched the country’s first integrated green energy storage project, will offer energy storage solutions through its cloud platform under a unique model to bulk energy users such as industries and state power distribution companies (discoms).

While the users can own the green energy project, storage would be offered as a service contract, Mahesh Kolli, founder, president, and joint managing director of Greenko Group told this paper. He added that the company has built an “Intelligent Energy Cloud Storage Platform”, which the project’s subscribers can plug into and utilise the energy storage. 

Greenko recently commenced construction of a 5.2 GW of integrated renewable energy storage project in Andhra Pradesh. The project has storage of 10 GWh, 3 GW of solar and 0.5 GW of wind power. The project already has private investors such as ArcelorMittal and Ayana Renewable and a tie-up with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) to sell power to Bihar, Rajasthan and DVC.

“Industries need continuous dispatch of carbon free electricity which has the flexibility of gas and surety of coal. But in case of conventional power supply arrangements, the industry does not own the energy. But in the integrated energy storage, they will own the energy they get,” said Kolli.

Under the model, the subscriber company will invest in the renewable energy project which Greenko will build. Energy storage will be a service contract. “Through the cloud platform, we are providing a massive network owned by anyone and we will deliver energy in the form that industry wants,” he said.

Taking a leaf out of integrated cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kolli said the storage network would also analyse demand-supply patterns, forecasting, energy management and dispatch.

“In its current raw form, solar energy is not supporting the demand, so the storage will provide a layer. Discoms have to pay DSM (Deviation settlement mechanism) charges when the scheduled power is not dispatched. That risk and cost is also averted,” Kolli said.

The energy storage system deployed by Greenko is an “off-stream closed loop pump hydro system”, which Kolli said is half the cost of battery storage and more sustainable. India would need close to 50 GWh of pump hydro to meet the storage needs in tandem with the growth plans of solar and wind energy.

“China is planning to have 200 GW of pump storage. A new growth strategy would need carbon-free electricity, which is cheap too. Greenko has been in this business since 2017, and now energy plus storage is, if not cheaper but at par with the non-pithead coal-based power,” Kolli said.  

Kolli said the three projects are all equity funded and already have investors on board for the upcoming two projects.