New Delhi, April 18, 2016 – Panasonic India Pvt Ltd and AES India Private Limited have announced an agreement to construct a 10 MW energy storage array at Panasonic’s Technopark manufacturing facility in Jhajjar, Haryana. This joint project is the first large-scale battery-based energy storage project in India. The storage will provide daily reliability and back-up to the manufacturing facility, while demonstrating grid stability and renewable integration services in the region. The project combines Panasonic’s capabilities as India’s leading lithium-ion battery supplier with AES Energy Storage’s Advancion® platform, experience as a leading owner and operator of energy storage projects across the world and its deep knowledge of the energy storage industry. While AES operates 116 MW of energy storage projects around the globe, this project signifies AES’ entry into the commercial and industrial energy storage market.

The Indian power market is expected to grow up to 350 GW by 2022, from current installed capacity of 288GW. In addition, there is a target to install 160 GW of solar and wind generation. While this rapid growth in renewables will help improve energy security, increase access to electricity, reduce reliance on energy imports, and reduce air emissions, it will also strain the system, as the current infrastructure is not designed to meet these modern demands. Energy storage can easily transform this infrastructure to deliver more value from the initial investment, while ensuring a clean, unbreakable grid that fuels India’s economic prosperity for decades to come.

Speaking about the agreement, Mr Manish Sharma, Executive Officer of Panasonic Corporation and President & CEO of Panasonic India Pvt Ltd, said, “Panasonic India’s partnership with AES signifies the convergence of synergies to deliver reliable, cost-competitive solutions to meet growing energy demand. This association further establishes our commitment and capabilities to providing smart energy storage solutions. Set to transform the energy storage landscape, Panasonic India looks forward to this association, which will help offer grid stability and improved ancillary services.”

The global energy storage market has entered a new growth phase and Navigant Research projects that more than 11 GW of energy storage capacity will be installed annually by 2020 in 22 countries. AES and Panasonic have both been working for several years to meet these demands. Panasonic has been working in “Energy Storage Solutions” space in India since FY 2013,and became market leader in supplying lithium ion batteries to Telecom Sector as well as multiple other mission critical applications. AES has integrated energy storage into eight different power markets in four countries and AES’ energy storage solutions represent the world’s largest advanced energy storage fleet, with more than three million megawatt-hours of delivered service. AES has announced construction or late stage development of an additional 278 MW of energy storage.

“We are excited to bring Advancion, the most proven energy storage system available globally, to India,” said Marty Crotty, President of AES’ Strategic Business Unit in Asia. “Panasonic delivers high quality, cost-effective batteries and is a great partner to be working with as we demonstrate the value of large-scale energy storage to commercial and industrial customers, renewable developers, utilities, and the grid operator.”

Advancion 4, AES’ latest design, incorporates insights from serving utilities globally for more than 30 years and lessons learned from more than eight years of real world operations of large-scale, grid-connected battery systems built to serve the needs of a long-term asset owner. The scalable design can be used for both utility-scale and behind-the-meter applications and allows for standard configurations from 100 kW to over 1,000 MW, and from 15-minutes of duration to over four hours without any reengineering.

Panasonic will be supplying Advancion certified batteries for this initial project by leveraging Panasonic’s manufacturing and supply chain from the transportation section. This is the first commercial energy storage project with AES and the companies are working on a roadmap to expand the scope of the partnership to meet the growing needs of the global market.