Is India's electricity grid ready for the surge in solar power generation?

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

MNRE has a programme to bring out bids for 50000 MW RE capacity every year, with nearly 80% allocated for solar. There is a new resolve to install rooftop in one crore homes which adds to 30000 MW in three years. Even if it takes some time to ramp up installation from present 20000 MW per year to double, there is a possible optimistic case of adding about 1,20000 MW solar capacity by the end of 2026.

Critics are raising the question whether India’s electricity grid will be able to handle this surge without endangering the stability of our power system while avoiding to curtail significant solar generation in the day hours. Let us discuss the basics.
Solar generation peaks during the day.

We can ask the hydro plants and gas based stations not to generate at that time. These can be started in a few minutes when needed. Wind generation peaks mostly in the evening when solar is not there.

But nuclear plants can not vary their output and have to run at nearly constant load round the clock. Similarly, coal based plants have to keep running at technical minimum during the day so as to ramp up timely for meeting the peak demand of non-solar peak hours. Therefore, the quantum of solar generation our grid can absorb is broadly arrived at by subtracting the nuclear generation and minimum technical load of coal power plants running on a day from the total demand during solar hours.