The Central government on Thursday awarded 50 Giga Watt Hour (GWh) of battery capacity to four successful bidders under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for advanced chemistry cell (ACC) battery storage.
The companies include Ola Electric Mobility (20 GWh), Hyundai Global Motors Company (20 GWh) and Rajesh Exports (5GWh) and Reliance New Energy Solar (5GWh). The latter had sought 20GWh but the remaining 15 GWh have been kept on a wait list. These companies will receive the incentives under the Centre’s ₹18,100-crore programme to boost local battery cell production, the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) said in a statement.
Manufacturing hub
“Today, the increase in demand for electric vehicles (EVs) due to a favourable regulatory framework, has mainly attracted investment in this sector. Today, big companies are investing in EV manufacturing in India and are interested to join us. We should give them more encouragement and keep trying to make India a manufacturing hub,” Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister for Heavy Industries, said.
The MHI said 10 companies had submitted their bids under the ACC battery storage programme for which the request for proposal (RFP) was released on October 22. The scheme was open to receiving applications till January 14 and the technical bids were opened on January 15.
Accelerating EV adoption
“All the 10 bids were evaluated and nine companies were found responsive and meeting the conditions of eligibility as per the requirements under the RFP. Accordingly, the financial bids for the qualified bidders were opened on March 17, after announcement of the results of technical evaluation under the transparent global tender process of RFP,” the statement added.
Some of the other bidders included Mahindra & Mahindra, Exide Industries, Larsen & Toubro, Amara Raja Batteries and India Power Corporation.
The ACC PLI scheme is expected to accelerate EV adoption and hence, translate into net savings of ₹2-2.5-lakh crore on account of oil import bill during the period of this programme and increase the share of renewable energy at the national grid level.