ML Khattar Inaugurates India’s First VRFB System
Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs ML Khattar on 11th November 2025 inaugurated India’s first Mwh-scale Vanadium Redox Flow battery (VRFB) system during his visit to NTPC’s NETRA in Greater Noida. The VRFB system at NETRA, NTPC’s R&D center, is also India’s largest.
While inaugurating the VRFB system, the minister lauded the NETRA team for developing solutions to address the energy transition and India’s energy security challenges. He emphasized that India’s capabilities in innovation and technology are setting new benchmarks for sustainable development and energy transition.
While visiting NTPC NETRA, the minister also visited demonstration plants for green hydrogen mobility, sewage treatment plant (STP) water-based green hydrogen, solid oxide-based high-temperature steam electrolyzer municipal solid waste refuse-derived fuel (MSW-RDF) based enhanced Steam Gasification Plant, and AC microgrid plant. He was also briefed about NTPC’s R&D work in Carbon Capture, Green Hydrogen, Energy Storage and Waste-to-Energy Technology domains.
A Vanadium Redox Flow Battery uses vanadium ion as charge carriers. A VRFB rechargeable flow battery is primarily used grid battery storage in power plants. It is one of the alternatives for traditional lithium ion-based batteries. The VRFB system is seen as a major step towards India’s long-duration energy storage (LDES) solutions.
