Maharashtra is one of India’s most active states for grid-scale battery storage, and the story has two parts: a big DISCOM (distribution company) tender to shave the evening peak, and a new long-term policy that puts storage at the centre of the state’s clean-power plan. This page pulls both together in plain English, and flags where a recent tribunal ruling has muddied the timeline.
The headline tender: MSEDCL’s 2 GW / 4 GWh
In July 2025, MSEDCL (Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited) — the state’s main DISCOM — floated a tender for 2,000 MW / 4,000 MWh of standalone battery storage. The purpose is straightforward: store cheap daytime solar power and release it during peak and off-peak demand hours, so the utility buys less expensive peak power. This is textbook peak shaving, just at a very large scale.
Key terms of the tender:
- Size: 2 GW / 4 GWh, with a minimum bid of 100 MW / 200 MWh.
- Duration: each system must give 2 hours of discharge and support two charge-discharge cycles per day.
- Model: build-own-operate (BOO), with capacity made available to MSEDCL on demand; MSEDCL provides land at a token ₹1 per plot per year on a right-of-use basis.
- Money: projects are eligible for central Viability Gap Funding (VGF) — a capital subsidy of up to ₹18 lakh per MWh under the Ministry of Power’s June 2025 guidelines.
The policy behind it: RE and Storage Policy 2025-36
Maharashtra notified a new Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Policy (2025-26 to 2035-36) that makes storage a core requirement rather than an afterthought. Reported highlights:
- 65 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by around FY36, needing roughly 100 GW of RE capacity.
- A goal of about 100 GWh of daily storage — at least 10 percent of power demand backed by storage by FY36.
- New renewable projects above 100 kW are expected to pair storage (reported at around 50 percent of project capacity for two hours), pushing developers toward integrated solar-plus-storage designs.
- Budgetary support (reported at around ₹1,650 crore over ten years) plus dedicated tariff categories and RE industrial zones.
This is the demand engine: the tender is one instrument, but the policy commits DISCOMs and developers to far more storage over the decade. It sits within the wider central BESS policy framework, which combines VGF, transmission-charge waivers and storage obligations on DISCOMs.
The MERC and APTEL wrinkle
Large tenders in India need regulatory sign-off, and Maharashtra’s went through the MERC (Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission). Here the timeline got complicated:
- The reverse auction discovered a storage tariff reported at about ₹1,65,998 per MW per month, which MERC approved in March 2026.
- But a Ministry of Power letter dated 31 December 2025 — after bids were in — added a condition that MSEDCL must be able to use each battery for at least 6,300 cycles, versus the roughly 5,475 cycles implied by the original one-cycle-a-day framework.
- In June 2026, the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) set aside MERC’s approval, ruling that changing a material condition after bids were submitted broke competitive-bidding principles. It directed cancellation of the Letters of Intent and return of bid security.
The practical upshot: the intent and the 4,000 MWh number stand, but the exact procurement path is being reworked. Treat the specific tariff and schedule as unsettled until MSEDCL re-issues terms.
Maharashtra’s slice of the national VGF pot
Under the Ministry of Power’s expanded 2025 VGF scheme for 30 GWh of standalone BESS â of which 25 GWh is split across 15 states and 5 GWh is for NTPC â Maharashtra was allocated a reported ≈4,000 MWh, matching the top recipients Rajasthan and Gujarat. The subsidy runs at â¹18 lakh per MWh (or 30 percent of capital cost, whichever is lower). For more on how the subsidy math works, see our guide to the VGF scheme. Maharashtra’s tender is essentially the state cashing in that allocation, in the same peak-shaving mould as other DISCOM peak-shaving BESS tenders now spreading across India.
What this means for you
- Developers and IPPs: Maharashtra is a genuine multi-GWh opportunity, but the APTEL ruling shows how post-bid condition changes can reset a tender — read the re-issued terms carefully, especially cycle-count and VGF-linkage clauses, before you model returns.
- DISCOMs and large buyers: the policy locks in storage demand for a decade; contracted or leased BESS capacity is emerging as the cheapest way to meet peak and storage-obligation needs.
- C&I users in the state: the same policy that reshapes the grid also strengthens the case for behind-the-meter storage against time-of-day peaks.
If you are sizing a project against Maharashtra’s tender terms or its storage mandate, talk to our team and we will map your load and site to the right configuration.
Policy snapshot as of July 2026. Tenders and terms change by notification — and the MSEDCL tender is itself under regulatory rework — so verify current provisions before financial decisions.