January 5th, 2022 – With India’s renewable energy target set at 500 GW of installed capacity by 2030, battery energy storage is a key enabler that can facilitate the transition to a clean and secure energy system. Batteries can store energy in on-peak times and release the energy when it is more needed in central, decentralised and off-grid situations. Batteries can also offer grid support services such as voltage control and frequency regulation, to maintain grid stability and flexibility.  Electric vehicles, as well as stationary energy storage, offer huge potential for a large volume of batteries, which can help plug in electricity down-times on the grid.

Interdependence of Green Mobility and Green Grid

Today, in India, the dominant payment method for electricity is “slab-based”, accounted for as INR per unit.  In some developed countries, such as United States, Germany, Japan, and China, the Time of Day (ToD) tariff system is built in to discourage consumption of electricity during the peak hours and promote consumption during off-peak hours, to reduce the overall consumption of electricity from power generation sources.  With ToD tariff forecasted to become more widespread in residential areas in India, along with smart metering, this will also have the added effect of managing the power supply in a better way and prevent load-shedding during peak hours.

The transition to an all-EV-powered transportation system as closely integrated with the electricity grid utility providers.  With nearly 14 million EV sales annually projected in India by 2030, the pressures on the electric grid to provide a seamless flow of electricity will sky rocket.

A battery energy storage system can support the grid 24x7 by providing frequency and voltage support, offsetting the use of carobon-intensive diesel sets.  Furthermore, these energy storage systems can be integrated with solar panels and EVs for grid stabilization to use the ToD charges during the off-peak demand period.  This kind of application also allows for power back-up, peak load shaving, solar integration, EV charging, frequency and voltage regulation and selling power back to the grid.

In addition, battery storage units can be clubbed together in order to provide additional power when needed, and support grid services for frequency and voltage regulation.  Batteries can be charged with inexpensive electricity when the power price is low, and then discharged when the electricity price is high. The energy storage system can provide a similar time-shift duty by storing excess energy production from renewable energy sources which might otherwise be curtailed.

Sheru’s Battery Tech Stack, built from Swapping Infrastructure

Sheru has built a ‘Battery Management System (BMS)’ which is a patented software layer which allows three-wheeler batteries in their e-rickshaw battery swapping network to be connected and powered by edge computing technology, operative insights and protective intelligence, leading to a fast and thorough assimilation of data.  The BMS also allows for Sheru to take pre-emptive steps to prevent battery failure and thus mitigate safety concerns.  The data gives the visibility into the range (kilometres travelled) that batteries would give, how they would perform across different drivers, vehicles, geographies, temperatures and how they would be able to predict downtime.  

The batteries programmed by Sheru in its swapping network, will be the foundation of their aggregate, utility-scale battery, which will allow for ‘vehicle-to-grid’ charging. Sheru’s vision is to be an all-purpose Energy Storage Cloud, whereby they will offer a range of analytics and cloud computing services, from its utility-scale aggregate battery stack, to grid operators, battery manufacturers, insurance providers and EV stakeholders.

Through its current partnerships with Tata Power, BSES Yamuna, Sheru plans to integrate its analytics platform with grid operators and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to create a horizontal, bi-directional flow of energy.  This will capitalize on the arbitration opportunity of current decentralized energy storage facilities and linking them up in a virtual power plant, building a revenue stream of subsidized electricity.  This will allow for energy not to be produced only vertically through centralized power from utilities, but rather in many different locations with the help of renewable generation, and where ‘prosumers’ can function as producer and consumers of electricity and feed this electricity back to the grid.