Deal factsCountry: India · Technology: Storage regulation · Stage: Policy · Size: 10% co-located storage from July 2027 · Parties: Central Electricity Authority
India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has proposed that every ground-mounted solar plant and onshore wind farm commissioned on or after 1 July 2027 must be built with co-located energy storage sized at no less than 10% of installed capacity. The draft regulations, published on 3 September 2026, would also require at least 15% of the inverters at new renewable plants to have grid-forming control, and are open for public comment until 4 October 2026.
The proposal takes the form of the draft Central Electricity Authority (Technical Standards for Construction of Electric Plants and Electric Lines) Second Amendment Regulations, 2026, issued under Section 177 of the Electricity Act, 2003. It moves storage from a tender-by-tender procurement choice to a construction standard that applies regardless of who is buying the power.
The storage obligation is phased by duration. For plants entering service from 1 July 2027 the co-located system must provide at least two hours of discharge, so a 100 MW solar park would need a minimum of 10 MW and 20 MWh of storage. For plants commissioned between 1 July 2029 and 30 June 2031 the minimum duration rises to four hours, taking the same 100 MW example to 10 MW and 40 MWh.
Grid-forming capability is the second pillar of the draft. Alongside the 15% threshold for inverters at renewable plants, every power conversion system within a battery energy storage system would need grid-forming control. The CEA says the intention is to strengthen the ability of storage assets to support grid operations and hold the system stable as conditions change, a growing concern as inverter-based generation displaces synchronous plant on India’s network. The authority has kept the right to revise the thresholds, noting that changes may be notified from time to time.
Why does this matter?
India is the largest renewable tender market in the emerging world, and this draft would hard-wire battery demand into every new utility-scale solar and wind plant. Developers, lenders and suppliers of cells, inverters and power conversion systems would face a structural, rule-based market for grid-forming storage rather than one dependent on individual auctions.
What happens next?
Stakeholders have 30 days to file comments with the Chief Engineer (Legal) at the CEA in New Delhi. The authority will then finalise the regulations, and developers with projects targeting commissioning after mid-2027 will need to check whether their bid assumptions, land take and interconnection designs already allow for co-located storage and grid-forming hardware.
Sources: Mercom India: CEA Proposes Mandatory Co-located Energy Storage for Solar, Wind Projects; SolarQuarter: CEA Proposes 15% Grid-Forming Inverters And Mandatory ESS For Renewable Projects From 2027.
More from the pipeline: all policy and regulation · India · the full pipeline map
Leave a Reply