This is in addition to a plan to invite bids for the largest global tender for setting up a 134Wh grid-scale battery storage system in Ladakh. The strategic push will make India’s grid scale battery storage programme the largest in the world.

Large battery storages can help keep India’s power grids stable, given electricity is produced intermittently from clean energy sources such as solar and wind. 1GWh (1,000-MWh) of battery capacity is sufficient to power 1 million for an hour and around 30,000 electric cars.

“The highest installed storage capacity in the world is a measly 400 megawatt hour (MWh),” Singh said at the conclave on Friday. “But the first major bid that I am coming out with is 1,000 megawatt-hour-two and a half times the largest capacity in the world. But that also is not sufficient. Only for my national grid-level operations, I will need 4,000 megawatt hours.

The government also plans to call bids for setting up around 4GWh of the grid-scale battery storage system at the regional load dispatch centres. In addition, state-run NTPC Ltd has floated a global tender for setting up a 1GWh grid-scale battery storage system.