Massive Solar deployment, and lower cooling demand due to cloudy weather results in a record low INR 0.0002/kWh for electricity rates on Indian Energy Exchange in March 2026

Electricity on IEX fell to lowest ever @ 0.0002/kWh (~$0/kWh) during mid afternoon hours last month, a first for country with large population.

But lack of large scale storage means that post 6pm, coal generated power is available at INR 5.2/kWh.

Currently ~100GW of Pumped Hydro storage is under planning or construction, and BESS deployment remains limited due to increased risk of reliance on China.

Funny story of reliance on China, major Indian corp. Reliance purchased $2.4bln tech-transfer for li-ion battery plant from China, but was blocked by CCP due to their fears of losing global monopoly on BESS.