Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)

Deploying Battery Energy Storage Systems to strengthen grids and enable them to rapidly adopt high levels of least-cost, variable renewable energy

Deploying Battery Energy Storage Systems

The future renewable energy mix will primarily derive from variable sources like solar and wind—except the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) solve this variability. GEAPP aims to enable ~200MW of BESS by 2024 through a mix of direct GEAPP high-risk capital and other concessional and commercial funding. By doing this we can reframe battery storage as a pathway to a reliable, renewable energy future and seed this $100 billion market.

BESS Projects

Pipeline

Ongoing

India

Supporting DISCOMs by scaling up BESS to provide grid balancing, ramping support, and other critical services, which reduces the total cost of power procurement and initiating pilot projects to drive the much-needed momentum for BESS in India with alliance funding partners, DISCOMs, private sector, and the broader BESS community to deploy ~ 1GW of BESS by 2026, mobilising ~500 Mn USD in commercial capital and reducing 5 Mn tonnes of GHG emissions annually.

Ongoing

Malawi

Supporting ESCOM to design, procure, install and operate a 20 MW BESS for frequency management to stabilize the national grid for improvement of electricity access, enable increased uptake of variable renewable energy, and replacing some peaking diesel generators; whilst generating accessible operations and commercial BESS data for developers, utilities, regulators and other BESS players to inform the development of future BESS projects and structure of enabling regulatory and tariff tools for grid battery services across the region.

Ongoing

Vietnam

Taking a leadership role in implementing the country’s first grid-connected BESS pilot in collaboration with USAID, the Asian Development Bank and the Rocky Mountain Institute. Bringing together the expertise and resources of Alliance members, GEAPP has coordinated a plan to embed and expand a pilot BESS project, create a BESS growth roadmap for 300MW and devise a regulatory framework.

Ongoing

India

Supporting DISCOMs by scaling up BESS to provide grid balancing, ramping support, and other critical services, which reduces the total cost of power procurement and initiating pilot projects to drive the much-needed momentum for BESS in India with alliance funding partners, DISCOMs, private sector, and the broader BESS community to deploy ~ 1GW of BESS by 2026, mobilising ~500 Mn USD in commercial capital and reducing 5 Mn tonnes of GHG emissions annually.

Ongoing

Malawi

Supporting ESCOM to design, procure, install and operate a 20 MW BESS for frequency management to stabilize the national grid for improvement of electricity access, enable increased uptake of variable renewable energy, and replacing some peaking diesel generators; whilst generating accessible operations and commercial BESS data for developers, utilities, regulators and other BESS players to inform the development of future BESS projects and structure of enabling regulatory and tariff tools for grid battery services across the region.

Ongoing

Vietnam

Taking a leadership role in implementing the country’s first grid-connected BESS pilot in collaboration with USAID, the Asian Development Bank and the Rocky Mountain Institute. Bringing together the expertise and resources of Alliance members, GEAPP has coordinated a plan to embed and expand a pilot BESS project, create a BESS growth roadmap for 300MW and devise a regulatory framework.

Ongoing

Global installed energy storage capacity by scenario, 2023 and 2030

Source: IEA

What is needed to accelerate and scale?

The BESS Consortium is a collaboration among investors, Alliance partners and countries to catalyze BESS deployment in a set of ‘first-mover’ LMIC countries or utilities. The benefits of joining are: