Mumbai, Jan 20 (PTI) Renew Power has entered into an joint venture with the US-based Fluence — which is a market leader in energy storage products, services and digital applications for renewables — to market storage devices in the country.
The 50:50 joint venture will be managed and operated by an independent management team and board, and it will bring in market-leading energy storage technology and global experience to domestic market to begin with by integrating Fluence’s energy storage products, the Gurugram-headquartered Renew Power said in a statement on Thursday.
The joint venture is expected to start operations in the first half of 2022, the company said without offering investment details.
The operations will begin by providing a solution to its first customer, Renew Power with 150 mwh BESS required for its 300-mw peak power project in Karnataka, Manuel Pérez Dubuc, chief executive of Fluence, said, adding in 2019, Fluence had delivered India’s first battery-based energy storage project.
The Central Electricity Authority sees the renewable storage market reaching 27 gw/108 gwh by 2030, from just a few mwh now; and energy storage will be a key enabler to achieve the country’s climate goal of 450 gw of renewable capacity addition by 2030.
Renew Power has a head-start in stationary energy storage space with portfolio of 300 mw peak power project and a 400 mw round-the-clock power project.
Founded by the global energy company AES and the German major Siemens in 2018, the Arlington, Virginia-based Fluence is a global leader in its space and is traded on the Nasdaq exchange, where Renew Power’s US subsidiary is also listed. Fluence has projects across 30 markets and its global experience, modular products and sophisticated software enable its customers to modernise electric grids and accelerate local renewable deployment while maintaining reliability, the statement said.
As September 2021, Fluence had over 3.6 gw of energy storage deployed or contracted in 30 markets globally, and over 4.7 gw of wind, solar, and storage assets optimized/contracted in Australia and California.
Sumant Sinha, chairman and chief executive of Renew Power, said the country’s energy transition and its ambition to achieve net zero by 2070 calls for strong and rapid storage integration with the grid. And this partnership with Fluence should go long way in achieving these national objectives as we expect it to set new milestones for the storage industry.
Dubuc said they are committed to accelerating India’s clean energy transition. “We will support the country’s ambitious climate goals in a capital-efficient manner by localizing our products to align with specific market needs, making our patented technologies and designs available to the joint venture and increasing the made-in-India content over time.” Renew Power is one of the largest independent renewable energy producers in the country. It develops, builds, owns, and operates utility-scale wind and solar energy projects, hydro projects and distributed solar energy projects.
As of December 2021, it had a capacity of around 10.3 gw of renewable energy projects in the country, including commissioned and committed projects. PTI BEN MKJ
