India's expanding solar fleet has cut coal use during daylight hours but evening demand keeps fossil generation running, Ember found. The think tank said battery storage can capture surplus solar in the day and release it in the evening, enabling cheap daytime solar to meet later demand and reducing pressure on coal-fired power. Kostantsa Rangelova, global electricity analyst at Ember, described this as a next step.

Ember said batteries can also limit renewable curtailment, improve utilisation of existing solar capacity and add system flexibility, but benefits will rely on continued deployment and market reforms that allow storage to access energy and ancillary service markets. The report noted that lithium iron phosphate batteries helped transform costs, with global average installed costs falling 95 per cent from $2,634 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2010 to $140 per kWh in 2025.

Solar reached a record share globally, generating just over 10 per cent of electricity in the first half of 2026, up from eight point nine per cent in the same period of 2025 and five point six per cent in 2023. Global solar output rose from 769 terawatt hours (TWh) in the first half of 2023 to 1,564 TWh in the first half of 2026 while total generation grew by 12 per cent.

Ember estimated global battery additions could reach 459 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2026, up 50 per cent from 307 GWh in 2025, and said that if new batteries were used to shift solar they could theoretically move 34 per cent of new daily solar generation into non-sunny hours. The think tank cautioned this was a theoretical ceiling because many batteries are underutilised.

California, Chile and Bulgaria showed that batteries can supply sizeable evening demand, raising evening shares in some markets substantially. Ember said India's transition will depend on shifting renewables into the evening.