India awards 1,344MW of pumped hydro storage and its first utility-scale vanadium flow battery
SECI awarded 1,344MW of pumped hydro storage to three developers on July 20-21, 2026, as Delectrik won India’s first utility-scale vanadium flow battery deal.
Photo by Robert So on Pexels
India’s Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) awarded 1,344 megawatts of pumped hydro storage contracts to three developers on July 20-21, 2026, while Indian startup Delectrik Systems separately won a contract to deploy the country’s first utility-scale vanadium redox flow battery, Tech Times and Energy-Storage.News reported. The two announcements landed in the same week and mark India’s shift from policy targets to commercial contracts for long-duration energy storage, technology designed to hold power for eight or more hours rather than the two-to-four-hour window typical of standard lithium-ion battery storage.
SECI’s pumped hydro auction clears three developers
SECI ran a competitive tender under its PSP-I framework for pumped hydro storage plants with a mandatory eight-hour discharge duration. The tender launched in December 2025 seeking 1,000 megawatts (8,000 megawatt-hours) and was expanded in March 2026 to 1,500 megawatts (12,000 megawatt-hours) after strong developer interest. Bids exceeded even the revised cap, and SECI ultimately awarded 1,344 megawatts.
Greenko Energies received the largest allocation at 720 megawatts, its full bid. Torrent Energy Storage Solutions also received its full 300 megawatt bid. Tata Power bid for 660 megawatts but was awarded 324 megawatts, reflecting the oversubscribed process. All three contracts run on a build-own-operate basis with 40-year Pumped Storage Purchase Agreements, and developers must begin supplying power within 36 months.
| Developer | Megawatts awarded | Megawatts bid | Equivalent annual fixed charge (per MW/year) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greenko Energies | 720 MW | 720 MW | approx. $113,936 |
| Tata Power | 324 MW | 660 MW | approx. $112,631 |
| Torrent Energy Storage Solutions | 300 MW | 300 MW | approx. $114,020 |
SECI’s PSP-I pumped hydro storage tender results, published July 20-21, 2026. INR figures converted to USD at 96.26 INR per USD (BookMyForex, July 22, 2026). Source: Tech Times, Energy-Storage.News.
Tata Power disclosed that its 324 megawatts will be drawn from its 1,000-megawatt Bhivpuri Pumped Hydro Storage Project in Raigad district, Maharashtra, with commissioning targeted for 2029 and annual fixed charges of approximately INR 351.3 crore (about $36.5 million). The award adds to Tata Power’s broader clean-energy portfolio of 17.5 gigawatts, including a 9.6 gigawatt pipeline of which 2.8 gigawatts is pumped storage.
Delectrik’s 100MWh vanadium flow battery at Khavda
Running parallel to the SECI awards, Delectrik Systems announced on July 21, 2026, that it had won a contract with infrastructure firm Bondada Engineering, awarded by NTPC Renewable Energy Limited, to deploy a 100 megawatt-hour vanadium redox flow battery at the Khavda Hybrid Renewable Energy Park in Gujarat, a site being developed toward a 30 gigawatt renewable capacity target by 2029. The project, rated at 16.7 megawatts of power capacity, is scheduled for deployment in 2027 and will connect to the Khavda solar plant’s 33 kilovolt pooling substation.
Delectrik describes the project as marking three firsts for India: its first utility-scale flow battery, its first non-lithium utility-scale battery storage system, and the first project of this scale designed, engineered and manufactured domestically. The company had previously commissioned a 3 megawatt-hour pilot vanadium flow battery at an NTPC facility in Greater Noida in 2025, which informed the utility-scale award.
Unlike lithium-ion batteries, where energy capacity and power capacity scale together, a vanadium redox flow battery stores energy in external tanks of liquid electrolyte, so the two can be sized independently. Round-trip efficiency is lower than lithium-ion, at 65-80 percent versus roughly 95 percent, but the electrolyte does not degrade with cycling. Global vanadium production is concentrated in China (about 55 percent), Russia (about 20 percent) and South Africa (about 10 percent); India currently imports most of its vanadium, and Delectrik’s subsidiary Delectrik Resources is pursuing domestic vanadium oxide production as a longer-term goal.
Part of a fast-growing storage pipeline
India’s non-fossil installed power capacity crossed 50 percent of the national total in 2025, five years ahead of schedule, increasing the need for storage that can shift midday solar surplus into the evening demand peak. The Central Electricity Authority published a roadmap in January 2026 targeting 100 gigawatts of pumped storage capacity by the 2035-36 financial year, up from roughly 7.2 gigawatts operational as of December 2025. India’s pumped hydro sector has a documented history of delays and cost overruns on individual projects, including the Tehri Pumped Storage Project, whose costs nearly tripled over almost two decades of delays; the 40-year fixed-charge structure used in the PSP-I awards is intended to reduce the revenue uncertainty that has complicated financing for past projects.
Winss Solutions has previously reported on other long-duration storage technologies competing for a role in grid-scale deployment, including zinc slurry batteries tested for long-duration storage and iron-air batteries as a long-duration storage option, as well as the record 108 gigawatts of battery storage added globally in 2025 reported by the International Energy Agency.
Background: long-duration storage and India’s grid
Pumped hydro storage pumps water to an elevated reservoir using surplus grid electricity, then releases it through turbines to generate power on demand, typically at 70-85 percent round-trip efficiency; it accounts for more than 94 percent of existing large-scale grid storage capacity worldwide, with more than 200 gigawatts installed globally as of 2025. Vanadium redox flow batteries are a newer, less energy-dense alternative better suited to sites without the elevation and water resources pumped hydro requires. SECI, the state agency that structured the PSP-I tender, operates under India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and has run several major renewable energy procurement rounds in recent years. The July 2026 awards to Greenko, Tata Power, Torrent Energy Storage Solutions and Delectrik Systems represent the first large-scale commercial contracts under India’s expanded push for long-duration storage.
Sources: Tech Times; Energy-Storage.News; The Manila Times (PR Newswire)
Featured image: photo by Robert So on Pexels (free Pexels license).
For more on this topic, see our explainer on how grid-scale battery storage actually works.
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I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.
