Maharashtra has significantly changed the energy landscape for commercial and industrial consumers in a matter of weeks. With the new renewable energy and storage policy and MERC’s revised multi-year tariff order, several assumptions used in energy models prepared in 2024 and 2025 may no longer hold. Businesses therefore need to revisit their energy strategies and plan consumption based on the new tariff and storage framework.
Step One: Rebuild Your Load Profile
The first step is to understand consumption by tariff slot across a full year. Businesses should analyse 15-minute interval data to determine how much electricity is consumed during the rebated daytime window versus the evening peak, as well as the seasonal variation and proportion of the bill attributable to demand and energy charges.
A daytime-focused operation may benefit from the revised tariff structure, while a three-shift facility with significant evening consumption could face higher costs. Understanding the actual load profile should therefore precede any investment decision.
Step Two: Re-underwrite Existing Solar Assets
Businesses with rooftop solar commissioned between 2020 and 2025 should revisit their original financial models. New Grid Support Charges, slot-wise banking restrictions and evening peak pricing can materially change the economics of existing installations.
The revised assessment should account for the applicable Grid Support Charge and the value of solar energy that was previously exported and subsequently drawn back during evening hours. This is particularly important for facilities such as cold storage, hospitals, hotels and multi-shift manufacturing units.
Step Three: Shift Load Before Adding Storage
There are two broad ways to respond to higher evening electricity costs: shift consumption or shift energy.
Where operationally feasible, businesses should move flexible loads such as electric vehicle charging, water pumping, HVAC pre-cooling and selected manufacturing processes into the daytime solar window. This can capture available rebates while avoiding evening surcharges, often with relatively limited capital investment.
For loads that cannot be moved without affecting operations, battery storage can shift solar energy from daytime to evening hours while potentially reducing peak demand and diesel generator usage.
Step Four: Treat Storage Requirements as a Design Opportunity
For new renewable projects above 100 kW, storage requirements should be considered as part of the overall system design rather than merely a compliance obligation.
The minimum storage requirement may satisfy connectivity conditions, but the economically optimal system could be larger depending on the facility’s load profile, evening demand, outage requirements and tariff exposure. Businesses should also evaluate the incentives available for qualifying storage and captive projects, as these can materially influence project economics.
Step Five: Choose the Right Commercial Model
Businesses should evaluate whether to own the asset, lease it, or adopt a storage-as-a-service model. Capex ownership can provide stronger lifetime economics and potential tax benefits but requires balance-sheet capacity and places technology risk on the consumer.
Operating or service-based models reduce upfront investment and can transfer performance risk to the provider, although they may deliver lower overall returns. The right structure will depend on the company’s cost of capital, tax position and appetite for managing an energy asset.
Step Six: Use the Planning Window
MERC’s published tariff trajectories through FY 2029–30 provide businesses with greater visibility for medium-term energy planning. Companies can use this window to model electricity costs, tariff changes, demand charges and the evolving value of solar and storage.
The key takeaway is that businesses should not treat the new guidelines simply as a compliance exercise. The right approach is to first understand the load, then optimise consumption, evaluate storage, and finally select the most suitable commercial structure. Starting this analysis now can help businesses protect energy costs and make better investment decisions as Maharashtra’s energy framework evolves.
