On March 18, 2026, the Government of Maharashtra quietly issued one of the most consequential energy policy documents in the state's history. The Maharashtra Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Policy 2025-26 to 2035-36 is a sweeping 10-year blueprint aimed at transforming how the state generates, stores, and consumes electricity. And buried within its pages, past the headlines about 100 GW of solar and 65% renewables by 2035, lies something far more immediately relevant to factory owners, warehouses, cold chains, hospitals, and industrial clusters across the state: a direct mandate for BESS deployment in the 10 kW to 100 kW segment, targeting MSMEs specifically. Maharashtra alone accounts for over 12% of India's industrial electricity consumption — making it the single biggest prize in the MSME BESS market.
This is not an aspirational language. Section 7.1.3 of the policy is unambiguous: MSEDCL is directed to undertake a bulk procurement program of Battery Energy Storage Systems between 10 kW and 100 kW with two to four hours of storage, with the explicit goal of reducing costs for MSME consumers. Financial support may be drawn from the state's Harit Urja Nidhi. This is a government-backed market creation effort aimed squarely at the commercial and industrial segment that has long been underserved by energy storage solutions designed either for residential rooftops or utility-scale grids.
For PuREPower, whose commercial and industrial BESS products cover exactly the 5 kW to 120 kW range, this policy is not just good news. It is a direct validation of the segment we have been building for.
Maharashtra's MSMEs collectively represent one of the largest concentrations of industrial electricity consumption in Asia. They run factories, process food, fabricate components, run cold storage, and keep supply chains moving. And yet, for years, their energy reality has been defined by a familiar set of pressures: rising Time-of-Day (ToD) tariffs that punish peak-hour usage, grid unreliability that disrupts production, limited access to the kind of renewable energy procurement routes available to large industrial consumers, and an energy storage market that offered nothing practical between a small UPS and a multi-crore utility battery installation.
The new policy changes the playing field structurally. The state has recognised that the "missing middle", MSMEs consuming between 10 kW and 100 kW, cannot be served by the same procurement and regulatory mechanisms designed for either small households or large industrial open access consumers. So it has created specific, targeted mechanisms for this segment.
One of the most transformative elements of the policy is the lowering of the Green Open Access eligibility threshold from 1 MW to 100 kW. Previously, only large industrial consumers with contracted demand above 1 MW could directly procure renewable power through open access. With this change, a medium-sized manufacturer, a multi-floor commercial complex, or a cluster of MSME units consuming 100 kW or above can now directly source solar or wind power at competitive rates.
The policy goes further: DISCOMs are directed to appoint a dedicated officer, at least at the rank of Superintendent Engineer, in each Zone specifically to assist MSMEs in navigating the Green Open Access process. A single-window clearance portal will be set up within two months of the policy notification. This is the state acknowledging that the problem for MSMEs has not just been policy eligibility, it has been bureaucratic friction. That friction is now being systematically reduced.
Section 7.1.3 is worth reading in full. The policy states that "in order to improve competitive supply procurement by MSMEs and to meet their energy banking requirement and to enhance reliability, deployment of BESS systems at consumer end will be valuable." It goes on to mandate that MSEDCL undertake bulk procurement of BESS systems in the 10–100 kW range, with 2 to 4 hours of storage, to bring down unit costs through aggregation. The government has explicitly earmarked the Harit Urja Nidhi as a potential source of partial financial support for this procurement.
What this means practically: MSEDCL will aggregate demand from thousands of MSME units, procure BESS systems at scale, and pass the cost benefit on to the end consumer. For MSMEs who have looked at BESS costs and found them out of reach, this bulk procurement route changes the economics entirely.
The policy establishes a clear regulatory framework for 10–100 kW consumers. This tier gets access to net-billing (where surplus generation credits are settled monthly within a ToD slot) and , critically , banking across ToD slots. The banking charge will reflect the real cost of energy storage services, priced to be reflective of actual grid conditions rather than concessional rates that distort incentives.
For an MSME with rooftop solar panels and a BESS system, this means being able to store solar energy generated during the day and deploy it during evening peak hours , precisely when grid power is most expensive under ToD tariffs. The ability to arbitrage across time-of-day pricing slots is the core commercial proposition of a BESS system, and the policy now gives it a clear regulatory home.
Starting April 2026, the policy mandates that new solar roof top projects above 100 kW seeking grid connectivity must include a minimum level of energy storage, equivalent to at least 50% of the RE capacity, for a duration of 2 hours. This requirement will be reviewed every two years. Existing projects are encouraged (but not yet required) to retrofit storage.
What this means for any MSME or commercial consumer planning a new solar installation: storage is no longer optional. It is now a condition of grid connectivity for systems above 100 kW. The implication is that the market for 10–100 kW BESS systems co-located with rooftop solar will grow dramatically, and it will grow fast.
Section 5.4 of the policy explicitly recognizes the value of decentralized BESS deployment for distribution-level reliability. It notes that such systems can serve critical social and strategic loads, small-scale industries, cold storage, healthcare facilities, and manage areas with high rooftop solar panel penetration. The policy envisages approximately 10% of the overall Energy Storage Obligation (ESO) to be met through decentralized systems, deployed across rural feeders and urban distribution networks.
This is significant: the government is not just incentivizing BESS for cost savings at the consumer level. It is building BESS into the infrastructure plan for grid reliability. For MSMEs whose operations depend on uninterrupted power, food processing, precision manufacturing, pharmaceutical cold chains, this creates a policy environment where BESS at the premises level serves dual purposes: business continuity and grid service.
The policy explicitly envisions standalone ESS being permitted to provide storage as a service to buyers, sellers, and grid operators. This opens the door to MSMEs who own BESS systems participating in ancillary service markets, earning revenue not just from their own energy cost savings but from providing grid balancing services. This is still an emerging commercial model in India, but Maharashtra is putting the regulatory architecture in place for it, and the policy's R&D and innovation provisions include piloting this model explicitly.
PuREPower's commercial and industrial BESS solutions, covering 5 kW to 120 kW, with each unit scalable in parallel to meet any load profile, were designed with the MSME market in mind long before this policy existed. What the Maharashtra policy has now done is validate that design philosophy and create the market conditions for rapid deployment.
Modular and Parallel-Scalable: A PuREPower 30 kW installation today can be scaled to 90 kW or 120 kW tomorrow simply by adding units in parallel, no new civil works, no new switchgear design, no engineering rework. This is exactly the kind of flexibility that MSMEs need as they grow and as the policy's requirements evolve over the decade to 2035.
Engineered for 2-Hour Cycling: The policy's minimum storage duration requirement of 2 hours for projects commissioned by FY 2029-30 is a threshold our products are designed to meet and exceed. Our battery chemistry, power electronics architecture, and thermal management systems are optimized for sustained charge-discharge cycles at or above 0.5C rating, delivering consistent, predictable performance across the ToD slot structure that the policy establishes.
Plug-and-Play for MSME Deployment: MSEDCL's bulk procurement mandate will require rapid deployment across thousands of industrial sites with varying electrical configurations and space constraints. PuREPower systems are designed to eliminate the need for complex on-site engineering. This is not a product that requires months of custom design, it is one that can be specified, quoted, and installed quickly across a diverse range of sites, which is exactly what bulk procurement programs require.
Smart EMS Ready for Regulatory Compliance: The policy's forecasting and scheduling requirements, the mandatory data sharing with DISCOMs for performance monitoring, and the smart metering mandates all require BESS systems to have capable, connected Energy Management Systems. PuREPower systems ship with built-in EMS and IoT connectivity, enabling real-time performance monitoring by both the owner and the DISCOM , a requirement that the policy makes explicit.
Space-Efficient, Safety-First Design: MSMEs rarely have the luxury of dedicated plant space. Our high-energy-density cabinet design is engineered for compact industrial footprints. Combined with our advanced thermal management system, which addresses the fire safety concerns that are especially relevant in the dense urban and industrial solar-plus-storage hubs that the policy explicitly promotes, PuREPower systems meet the highest safety standards without demanding large dedicated spaces.
Hybrid-Ready from Day One: For the large number of MSMEs who already have rooftop solar installed, our systems are designed to integrate seamlessly as retrofit additions. The policy actively encourages existing solar projects to supplement with storage, and our hybrid-ready architecture means that adding a PuREPower BESS to an existing solar system is straightforward, both technically and commercially.
High Round-Trip Efficiency: With the policy now clarifying that stored energy consumed within Maharashtra is exempt from transmission and distribution charges, the actual energy savings from BESS deployment depend critically on how much of the energy that goes in actually comes out usable. High Round-Trip Efficiency (RTE) directly determines the magnitude of this financial benefit. PuREPower's RTE performance ensures that MSMEs capture the maximum possible value from the government's charge exemption provisions.
Maharashtra's 10-year policy horizon runs to 2035-36. Within that window, the state intends to reach 100 GW of renewable energy capacity and 100 GWh/day of energy storage capacity. The decentralized, MSME-focused portion of that storage buildout, the 10–100 kW segment, will be executed through MSEDCL's bulk procurement program, Green Open Access expansion, and the mandatory storage integration requirements for new solar projects.
The MSMEs that position themselves early, who engage with the Green Open Access process now, who upgrade their solar installations with storage ahead of the April 2026 mandate, who participate in MSEDCL's bulk procurement program when it launches, will have first-mover advantages in energy cost savings, grid reliability, and potentially in ancillary service revenue as that market develops.
The policy is effective from the date of its publication as a Government Resolution, which was March 18, 2026. The clock has already started. Explore the right PuREPower solution by getting in touch with our experts today at https://www.pureenergy.co.in/enquiry-now/
For a decade, battery energy storage has been discussed as the future of clean energy in India. Maharashtra's RE and Energy Storage Policy 2025-26 to 2035-36 has made it the present, with specific targets, specific mandates, specific financial support mechanisms, and a specific bulk procurement program targeting the exact BESS size range that serves the MSME segment.
PuREPower's 5 kW to 120 kW commercial and industrial BESS solutions are ready to be deployed today. They are engineered to meet the policy's technical requirements, designed for the space and budget realities of Maharashtra's MSMEs, and built to scale modularly as your energy needs grow over the decade.
If you are an MSME in Maharashtra, this policy was written with your energy future in mind. The question is whether you will be among the first to act on it.
Take the next step toward smarter energy management with our reliable and cost-effective BESS solutions. Explore commercial offerings and partnership opportunities at: https://www.pureenergy.co.in/dealership-enquiry
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