India curtailed nearly 11 TWh of solar generation over 15 months, enough to power 10 million homes, as grid and storage constraints outpaced its renewable build-out, according to the Associated Press. Ingro Energy CEO Ankit Mittal said scaling solar without matching battery storage investment will only worsen curtailment as India electrifies its power system.
SNAPSHOT
Curtailed Solar Volume: ~11 TWh over the past 15 months (government data, Ember)
Homes-Equivalent Impact: ~10 million homes' worth of power
Installed Clean Capacity: 300+ GW (over half of India's total installed capacity)
Top Solar States: Gujarat, Rajasthan (~50% of India's solar capacity combined)
National Storage Capacity: Not disclosed in source — no battery storage figure given
Key Voice: Ankit Mittal, CEO, Ingro Energy (battery storage company)
Status: Ongoing; grid operators separately working to make thermal plants more flexible
DESCRIPTION
India curtailed nearly 11 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar generation over the past 15 months, according to government data and research from energy think tank Ember, cited by the Associated Press. The curtailed volume is enough to power roughly 10 million homes. Curtailment occurs when grid operators order solar or wind plants to reduce or halt output because the network cannot absorb the electricity generated, and industry executives say India's uneven build-out of storage and transmission capacity is a central cause.
India has surpassed 300 GW of installed clean power capacity, more than half of its total generation capacity. However, coal-fired plants still supply the majority of electricity generated nationwide. Solar output is geographically concentrated; Gujarat and Rajasthan together account for roughly half of India's installed solar capacity. This creates localized oversupply during peak midday generation hours in those states.
Ankit Mittal, CEO of battery storage company Ingro Energy, said increasing solar installations without solving for energy storage will only lead to further curtailment. Mittal shares that India is attempting to transform several parts of its electricity system at once, expanding generation, storage and transmission simultaneously, while power demand itself is rising quickly and unpredictably.
Industry sources cited by the report said few anticipated the pace of India's demand growth, driven by a combination of factors: extreme heat and groundwater pumping during a below-average monsoon season, the early stages of transport electrification, and new data center construction. A renewable energy executive at Vibrant Energy said the limited transmission capacity available to evacuate solar power during its afternoon peak was not something the industry had planned for, adding that few in the sector anticipated the scale of the mismatch when solar capacity was first being built out at pace.
Grid operators are separately working to make coal and gas-fired thermal power plants more flexible, so they can ramp output up and down faster to complement variable solar and wind generation, according to the report.