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Expanding battery energy storage systems and strengthening transmission infrastructure will be critical to supporting the next phase of India's renewable energy growth as solar capacity continues to rise, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) Secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi said in an exclusive conversation with ANI.
His remarks come after the government announced that the 'PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana' has crossed the milestone of 50.06 lakh households benefiting people from rooftop solar installations. The scheme, launched with an outlay of Rs 75,021 crore, has achieved the milestone in just over two years, with rooftop solar installations sharply accelerating across the country. Speaking about the next challenge in India's clean energy transition, Sarangi said the focus is now shifting from adding renewable energy capacity to ensuring that the electricity generated is efficiently absorbed by the power grid. Responding to a question on reducing renewable energy curtailment and strengthening grid absorption, he said, "There are many elements to this but primarily improving transmission lines both at interstate as well as intrastate level and adding more battery energy storage system to our portfolio would result in better integration of renewable to the grid." According to the secretary, improving the transmission network across states and within states, along with expanding battery storage capacity, will help integrate the rapidly growing share of renewable energy into the electricity grid and improve overall system reliability. Sarangi also highlighted the role of floating solar projects in overcoming land constraints faced by several states. "Floating solar project would obviously help overcome land constraints, especially in those states which are agricultural rich. So states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, which are agricultural rich and there is no spare land available for ground mounted solar can take the benefit of floating solar and for that the recent scheme which we have announced is definitely going to help the states." The MNRE Secretary added that the ministry is also working on expanding agri-photovoltaic projects, where electricity generation and agriculture can coexist on the same land. He said pilot projects are currently being carried out with the support of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to identify crops best suited for cultivation under solar panels. "We are trying to identify the crops which are most suitable, most amenable to agrifotovoltaics and once we have the recommended crops which are most suitable, we will share it with different states and hope that agrifotovoltaics is able to augment farmers income through generation of electricity as well as cultivation of horticultural crops which tend to grow well under the agrifotovoltaics," Sarangi said. Earlier, the government said the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana has reached 50.06 lakh households, compared with 7.94 lakh rooftop solar installations recorded during the preceding ten years. The programme is now adding one lakh beneficiary households every six days, while 5.06 lakh households benefited from rooftop solar installations in July 2026, the highest monthly figure recorded since the scheme began. Sarangi described the achievement as a significant milestone towards the government's target of covering one crore households by March 31, 2027, saying the programme remains the world's largest rooftop solarisation initiative. (ANI)
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