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Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company plans a major restructuring. The agriculture business will be separated by April. This move precedes a planned Initial Public Offering by December. The company aims to reduce its debt significantly. This will strengthen its financial position for the listing. The company is also shifting towards renewable energy sources. View More
Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company plans to complete the demerger of its agriculture arm by April, a key step ahead of its planned initial public offering for December, a top official has said. "We are targeting an IPO by December for MSEDCL (Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company), and before that, we will demerge our agriculture business, which we aim to complete by April," its Chairman and Managing Director Lokesh Chandra told PTI on the sidelines of the Mumbai Climate Week. The agriculture segment will be carved out as a separate company, not a subsidiary, ensuring its liabilities do not remain on the balance sheet of the core distribution utility, Chandra said. MSEDCL carries total dues of about Rs 96,000 crore, of which nearly Rs 76,000 crore relates to unpaid agricultural consumption, he said. The accumulation of these arrears has led to higher working capital borrowings and financial strain, despite the core distribution business being operationally viable, Chandra added. Live Events Post-demerger in April, the residual entity will retain debt of roughly Rs 20,000 crore, which the company considers sustainable, he added. Following the carve-out, the company will undertake a balance sheet clean-up and debt restructuring before launching the IPO process. The listing is targeted for completion by December this year, Chandra said. The government is planning to dilute up to 10 per cent stake in the company through the IPO, he said, adding that IPO proceeds are likely to be deployed towards capital expenditure in transmission and distribution infrastructure. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced that the state's intent to list the energy utilities, including MSEDCL and also the generation and transmission arms in December 2025. He hinted that the process will start with the listing of the transmission company in 2026. Chandra said that discussions with the state government are underway to address agriculture-related arrears. Once resolved, the restructuring is expected to strengthen financial metrics and improve valuation prospects at the time of listing. The company expects to save nearly Rs 66,000 crore in power procurement costs over the next five years through a strategic shift towards renewable energy backed by optimal storage planning. The utility has redesigned its resource adequacy and power procurement plan to raise the share of renewables from around 15 per cent currently to 52 per cent, while carefully balancing solar, wind and storage capacities, he said. .Pbanner{display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;background-color:#ec1c40;margin-top:20px;padding:5px 10px;border-radius:4px;color:#fff;line-height:10px;} .Pbannertext{display:flex;align-items:center;font-size:16px;font-weight:600;font-family:'Montserrat';} .Pbannertext img{height:20px;margin:0 6px} .Pbannerbutton a{display:flex;align-items:center;background-color:#fff;color:#ec1c40;text-decoration:none;font-weight:600;padding:4px 8px;border-radius:6px;font-size:15px;font-family:'Montserrat';} .Pbannerbutton img{height:20px;margin-right:6px} .Pbannerbutton a:hover{background-color:#f7f7f7} Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel) (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel)
Battery storage costs plummeted by over a quarter to a record low of $78 per megawatt-hour last year, significantly improving the economics of pairing storage with renewables. This decline is crucial for strengthening solar project revenues, supporting renewable deployment, and accelerating grid balancing away from fossil fuels. View More
Battery storage costs fell more than a quarter to a record low last year, improving the economics of projects to pair the equipment with renewables and which can help tackle curtailment of solar and wind. The benchmark levelised cost of electricity for a standalone four-hour battery project declined 27% in 2025 from a year earlier to $78 per megawatt-hour and is expected to fall to $58 per megawatt-hour by 2035, BloombergNEF said in a report published Wednesday. “As costs continue to drop, we expect battery storage to strengthen solar project revenues, support broader renewable deployment and accelerate the shift toward storage‑led system balancing over fossil-fuel‑based peaking capacity,” said Amar Vasdev, a BNEF senior energy economics associate and lead author of the report. Bloomberg Lowering the cost of battery storage — which can soak up surplus electricity generated through the day and release it in the evening, when demand is highest — is seen as crucial, particularly as an influx of solar and wind generation in some countries begins to strain grids, forcing the curtailment of renewables projects. Wider adoption of storage technology is also improving the resilience of energy infrastructure as electricity demand rises sharply, and helped to cushion the impact of last month’s severe US winter storms. For developing economies, providing cheaper and reliable clean alternatives to the cost competitiveness of fossil fuels is regarded as key to promote decarbonisation. Live Events Battery storage was an exception in 2025 among most energy technologies, with supply chain constraints or other factors driving costs higher for wind farms, fixed-axis solar projects and combined-cycle gas turbines, the BNEF report said. Lower battery cell prices, improved designs and more competition helped propel the savings, and outpaced BNEF’s projection for an 11% cost reduction last year. Stationary energy storage deployments, excluding pumped hydro, are forecast to increase by a third in 2026 to 122.5 gigawatts, led by growth in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, BNEF said in a separate report last month. Bloomberg Installations are being supported by the expansion of utility-scale projects, residential demand and the co-location of batteries with solar farms. Even with higher financing costs and the impacts of protectionist policies and supply-chain snarls, further innovation and competition should enable further cost reductions across clean energy, BNEF said in the Wednesday report. By 2035, additional levelised cost of electricity reductions could total 30% for solar, 25% for battery storage, 23% for onshore wind and 20% in offshore wind. .Pbanner{display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;background-color:#ec1c40;margin-top:20px;padding:5px 10px;border-radius:4px;color:#fff;line-height:10px;} .Pbannertext{display:flex;align-items:center;font-size:16px;font-weight:600;font-family:'Montserrat';} .Pbannertext img{height:20px;margin:0 6px} .Pbannerbutton a{display:flex;align-items:center;background-color:#fff;color:#ec1c40;text-decoration:none;font-weight:600;padding:4px 8px;border-radius:6px;font-size:15px;font-family:'Montserrat';} .Pbannerbutton img{height:20px;margin-right:6px} .Pbannerbutton a:hover{background-color:#f7f7f7} Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now!
India's power sector tendering pipeline is now shifting towards hybrid and storage-based projects, reflecting a growing focus on improving energy reliability and supporting renewable energy integration, according to a report by Nuvama Research. View More
The solar eclipse on 17 February will be a Ring of Fire event. Live coverage will be available online via NASA and Google, allowing global audiences to safely witness the rare phenomenon. View More
The ?30,000 crore expansion to add 50GW of capacity is led by companies including Waaree Energies, Adani Solar, Reliance Industries Ltd, ReNew Energy Global Plc, Avaada Group and Premier Energies. The immediate reason: The impending debut of ALMM rules for the solar sector. View More
The first solar eclipse of 2026 will occur on February 17, but the annular “Ring of Fire” event will be visible only from limited parts of the world—not including India or the US. View More
Upcoming capacity addition includes two major solar power projects in Gujarat – 100 MW in Patan and 300 MW in Khavda View More
"You could see easily a world where maybe most of the world's population is running on a Chinese tech stack in five to 10 years time," one analyst told CNBC. View More
In this articleNVDAFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT China is focusing on large language models in the artificial intelligence space.Blackdovfx | Istock | Getty Images China's rapid advancement in AI is threatening to shake up U.S. dominance in the market, with one analyst warning of a tech shock that is just getting started. Rory Green, TS Lombard's chief China economist and head of Asia research, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday that America's "perceived monopoly" on tech and AI has been broken by China. "I think the China tech shock is just getting started. It's not just AI, DeepSeek, and electric vehicles. China is moving up the value chain very rapidly... It's the first time in history that an emerging market economy is at the forefront of science and technology," Green said in a conversation with CNBC's Steve Sedgewick and Ben Boulos. China is pairing dominant-market level tech with emerging-market production costs, backed by its massive supply chain, Green said. He added that with Xi Jinping being like a "tech bro" that is chucking money into these sectors, it makes for a powerful mix that is really rapidly accelerating the China tech story.Indeed, Beijing quietly launched a 60.06 billion yuan ($8.69 billion) national AI fund last year, and has an initiative called "AI+" which will see the tech integrated across its economy, industries, and society. watch nowVIDEO9:4709:47'Xi Jinping is a tech bro': Analyst says China's rally has room to runSquawk Box Europe China is quickly catching up to the U.S. in the AI arms race, developing highly advanced models powered by homegrown chips, particularly through massive Huawei chip clusters and abundant low-cost energy. While U.S. chip giant Nvidia is viewed as the gold standard for semiconductors used to train AI models, Huawei is narrowing the gap by deploying larger volumes of chips and leveraging cheaper power to scale compute.TS Lombard's Green explained that a "China tech sphere" could easily form, as the world's second-largest economy's low-cost tech offerings may be more attractive to developing economies. "China is a top trade partner for most of the world, particularly in emerging and frontier economies. What happens if that repeats on tech?" Green said. Developing economies that don't have a national security issue with China have a choice between "low-cost China tech, Huawei, 5G batteries, solar panels, AI, probably some cheap RMB financing," or "high-cost American and European alternative," he said. "For these economies, I think the choice is fairly simple, and you could see easily a world where maybe most of the world's population is running on a Chinese tech stack in five to 10 years time," he added. Additionally, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, one of the world's leading AI labs, told CNBC in January that China's AI models might be just "a matter of months" behind U.S. and Western rivals and are closer to those capabilities than "maybe we thought one or two years ago." U.S. hyperscaler spending U.S. hyperscalers Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet recently announced capital expenditure of up to $700 billion on AI this year, which raised alarms about returns and caused $1 trillion to be wiped from the market caps of tech giants. Some stocks have since pared their losses.Karim Moussalem, Selwood Asset Management's chief investment officer, told "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday that there's a lot of "nervousness around U.S. exceptionalism," especially after the sell-off in the U.S. software sector earlier this month. "When I think of the hyperscalers' capex, we're seeing a race that's on and a lot of money being spent, and more and more question marks around whether you know all that investment, all that capex, is going to result in meaningful return on investments," Moussalem said. "I think that's really what's driving this big question mark about the U.S. versus China, and whether the U.S. will be the winner in that race. But for the time being, there's a lot of capital being spent, actually a lot more than even what was expected a few months ago, with more and more question marks about the ROI," he added. â CNBC's Steve Sedgwick and Ben Boulos contributed to this report