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Adani Energy Solutions bagged a ₹4,700 crore transmission project that will help move up to 4,500 MW of renewable and stored power from Karnataka towards major electricity-demand centres in Maharashtra.
Context: the project has the rather long official name “Network Expansion Scheme in Western Region to Cater to Pumped Storage Potential near Satara”. 4,500 MW is oughly equivalent to the output of four to five large conventional power-generation units running at full capacity.
What’s going on: Karnataka has large renewable-energy resources, particularly wind and solar. Maharashtra, meanwhile, has huge electricity-demand centres such as Mumbai and Pune, along with upcoming pumped-storage capacity around Satara.
This project will increase the grid's ability to carry large amounts of power from the renewable-rich southern region towards western India.
The why: Solar and wind generation can be plentiful at one time and scarce a few hours later.
That's where pumped storage comes in. Think of it as a giant water battery.
When there is plenty of cheap electricity available, water is pumped from a lower reservoir to a higher one. When electricity demand rises, that water is released downhill through turbines to generate power.
That's why Adani Energy CEO Kandarp Patel calls pumped storage an important part of India's clean-energy transition. The more solar and wind India installs, the more it needs ways to balance their unpredictable generation.
Zoom out: India wants around 500 GW of non-fossil power capacity by 2030. But adding hundreds of gigawatts of solar and wind without adding enough storage creates a problem.
What happens when renewable power is being generated at a different time from when people actually need it?
The government's latest numbers show the scale of the storage buildout ahead.
India is projected to need 7.45 GW of pumped-storage capacity in 2026-27. By 2031-32, that requirement jumps to 26.69 GW, capable of storing around 175 GWh of electricity. The estimated investment required for pumped storage alone is around ₹1.29 lakh crore.
