GAIL (India) has invited bids for project management consultancy (PMC) services for its proposed 100 MW solar power project integrated with a 22 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in Maharashtra.
The project will be developed in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district and is primarily intended to meet the captive electricity requirements of GAIL’s propane dehydrogenation-polypropylene (PDH-PP) plant at Usar in Raigad district.
The solar-plus-storage project forms part of GAIL’s wider plan to develop 700 MW of solar capacity across Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, for which the company has approved an investment of around Rs 3,800 crore.
Solar Project To Be Integrated With Battery Storage
The Maharashtra project will combine 100 MW of solar generation with 22 MWh of battery storage. The storage component is intended to improve utilisation of solar generation by managing intermittency and extending the availability of renewable electricity beyond periods of direct solar production.
The PMC will support the development and implementation of the project, marking another step towards execution of the capacity announced by GAIL earlier this year.
In April, GAIL had announced the Maharashtra project alongside a substantially larger 600 MW solar project equipped with a 550 MWh BESS at the TUSCO Solar Park in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. The Jhansi project is primarily intended to supply captive renewable electricity to GAIL’s petrochemical plant at Pata in Auraiya district.
GAIL Plans 700 MW Solar Expansion
Together, the Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh projects represent 700 MW of planned solar capacity and 572 MWh of battery storage.
GAIL had 147 MW of installed renewable-energy capacity when it announced the projects in April and expects its renewable portfolio to exceed 1,000 MW following their commissioning.
The expansion is part of GAIL’s broader decarbonisation programme. The company has set an ambition to achieve a 100 per cent reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2035 and reduce Scope 3 emissions by 35 per cent by 2040.