ACME Cleantech to ramp up battery making capacity by April 2019

ACME Cleantech Solutions will ramp up its battery manufacturing facility on the back of the government’s push towards lowering fossil fuel dependence.

“ACME has a fully integrated manufacturing facility for lithium-ion batteries that has a current production capacity of 350 MWh per annum. The company aims to expand it to 1 GWh per annum by April 2019,” a company official told BusinessLine.

An industry watcher said that this will require a capital expenditure of ₹500-600 crore.

In early 2017, the ACME group was in the news after winning bids for setting up 250 MW of solar power generation capacity in the Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Power Project at the then record low tariff of ₹2.97 a unit. The entire project with a total solar installed capacity of 750 MW in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh is expected to be completed in 2018.

And by December 2017, ACME Solar Holdings got the nod of markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to raise ₹2,200 crore through an initial public offering (IPO). The Draft Red Herring prospectus was filed with the SEBI in September.

ACME Solar Holdings said that funds raised through the issue would be used to pay debt and to finance the company’s 200 MW solar power project in Rajasthan and for other general corporate purposes. ACME Solar Holdings is a subsidiary of ACME Cleantech Solutions.

According to the Draft Red Herring Prospectus, ACME Solar Holdings intends to utilise ₹541 crore from the net proceeds to repay a loan availed from ACME Cleantech Solutions.

The ACME Group was established in 2003 and originally operated as a provider of energy management solutions to wireless telecommunication operators in India. ACME Solar Holdings was established in 2015 to consolidate the group’s solar power business.