India Sanctions Its First Utility-Scale Flow Battery: Delectrik to Build 100 MWh Vanadium Store at Khavda

India has cleared the way for its first utility-scale non-lithium battery. NTPC Renewable Energy Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of state power giant NTPC, has awarded a 100 MWh vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) project that will be built at the sprawling Khavda solar park in Gujarat. The tender was won jointly by Delectrik Systems and Bondada Engineering Limited, with Delectrik supplying the flow-battery technology.

The award, announced around 20-21 July 2026, marks the first time an Indian utility has committed to a flow battery at grid scale — and, according to the developers, the first project of this size to be entirely designed, engineered and manufactured in India.

Why a flow battery, and why now

The lithium-ion cells that dominate today's storage market are excellent for short, sharp bursts of power, but they degrade with heavy cycling and carry fire risk. Vanadium redox flow batteries take a different approach: they store energy in tanks of liquid electrolyte that is pumped through a cell stack. Power and energy can be scaled independently — add bigger tanks for more hours of storage — and the electrolyte barely degrades over thousands of cycles.

That makes VRFBs well suited to long-duration jobs such as soaking up midday solar output and releasing it into the evening peak, precisely the balancing act India's fast-growing renewable fleet increasingly needs. Lower fire risk is an added attraction for large installations sited next to gigawatts of solar generation.

Anchored at the world's largest renewable park

The battery will be installed in 2027 at Khavda, the Gujarat mega-park that is slated to become the world's largest renewable energy site, with a planned generation capacity of about 30 GW by 2029. Pairing a long-duration store with that scale of intermittent generation is exactly the kind of firming capacity the grid will require as solar and wind shares climb.

For NTPC, the country's largest power producer, the project is a test bed for a storage chemistry that could complement its pumped-hydro and lithium-ion investments as it builds out non-fossil capacity.

A home-grown supply chain in the making

Delectrik Systems is not new to the technology. The company previously delivered a 3 MWh VRFB at NTPC's Greater Noida site in 2025, and the 100 MWh Khavda award represents a more than thirty-fold jump in scale. To secure the upstream raw material, Delectrik has set up two wholly owned subsidiaries — Delectrik Resources Private Limited, which is moving into vanadium oxide production and eventually vanadium asset ownership, and Delectrik Esaas Private Limited.

That vertical push matters. Vanadium electrolyte is the single largest cost driver in a flow battery, and building a domestic supply — rather than importing finished electrolyte — is what turns a one-off project into the basis of an industry. A 100% India-designed, India-built utility-scale system, backed by a local materials play, is a meaningful step towards that goal.

The bigger picture

India's storage ambitions have so far leaned heavily on lithium-ion and pumped hydro. A flagship vanadium flow project at Khavda diversifies that mix with a chemistry purpose-built for long-duration, high-cycle service — and does so with domestic engineering. If the installation performs, it could open the door to a wider role for flow batteries in firming India's renewable-heavy grid over the coming decade.

Sources

• pv magazine India — Bondada Engineering secures 100 MWh vanadium redox flow battery energy storage project from NTPC Renewable Energy (20 July 2026): https://www.pv-magazine-india.com/2026/07/20/bondada-engineering-secures-100-mwh-vanadium-redox-flow-battery-energy-storage-project-from-ntpc-renewable-energy/
• Power Technology — Delectrik to install 100MWh vanadium flow battery in Gujarat: https://www.power-technology.com/news/delectrik-to-install-100mwh-battery-gujarat/
• SolarQuarter — Delectrik to Deploy India's First 100 MWh Vanadium Flow Battery Project at Khavda Solar Park (21 July 2026): https://solarquarter.com/2026/07/21/delectrik-to-deploy-indias-first-100-mwh-vanadium-flow-battery-project-at-khavda-solar-park/
• The Manila Times / PR Newswire — Delectrik Systems to Deploy India's First Utility Scale Flow Battery of 100 MWH Capacity (21 July 2026): https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/07/21/tmt-newswire/pr-newswire/delectrik-systems-to-deploy-indias-first-utility-scale-flow-battery-of-100-mwh-capacity/2388044