The stated-owned Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) is evaluating charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs), having been given the responsibility of developing so called green energy transmission corridors for the country, reports the Hindustan Times.
“We are looking at three different battery technologies — advanced lead acid, lithium-ion and flow technologies and how they behave in the Indian environment, along with the economics. We are technology agnostic. It can be another business area,” the paper quoted an unnamed source from PGCIL as saying.
The source added: “We are working on developing an EV business. The idea is to store the surplus electricity generated by solar in these batteries. We are exploring setting up charging infrastructure which will help the national grid.”
India plans to generate 175GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022, with100GW to come from solar power projects. The batteries in EVs offer a storage solution to further clean energy use in India, according to the paper.
Reji Kumar Pillai, president and chief executive officer of the India Smart Grid Forum, said EVs and the electric grid could be aggregated as virtual power plants for managing the supply-demand imbalances on the grid.
Pillai added: “Another very interesting option is the secondary use of retired batteries from electric vehicles for building GW scale energy storage to support the grid with increasing share of renewables.”
India’s energy import bill is expected to double from around $150 billion to $300 billion by 2030. The government has been trying to push sales of electric vehicles and has set an ambitious target of selling six million.
