India will begin a new tender for 20 GW battery production capacity

The Ministry of Heavy Industries is going to release a new tender by 10 August for establishing up of 20 Gigawatt of battery storage capacity for energy as part of the larger plans to speed up the nation's electric mobility mission. The government had earlier tried to award 50 GW capacity under the PLI scheme for ACC battery storage, of which 20 GW remained unallotted. "For the 20 GW that went unallocated, fresh bids are being invited. We are holding a stakeholder consultation with the prospective bidders on 24 July, and the tender should be in the public domain by 10 Aug," said Kamran Rizvi, Secretary Ministry of Heavy Industries.

He was replying to a question asked by G20 Sherpa and former Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on the status of India's preparation on the battery capacity front at a seminar on "Enabling Policies to Accelerate E-Mobility" as part of the 14th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) and Mission Innovation (MI) 8 meetings in Goa. Rizvi stated out of the 30 GW capacity that the government provided in the beginning, 20 GW went to Ola Electric, whose manufacturing facilities are coming into production by the end of this year. "It will be an analyzed one. It will begin with 5 GW and then scale up to 20 GW in the next year. Our other partner is Reliance Industries (RIL). They gained the technology of SodiumIon cells, and their plant is also coming up," he said.

The MHI secretary stated that this will bring the entire 50 GW of government funding in this area in the public domain. "In addition, private companies have also announced around 50 GW at their own initiative. So, around 100 GW of manufacturing capacity is lined up in the next 2-3 years," he said. Rizvi also informed the audience that the government was working on another proposal for producing 5 GW of specific technologies for battery manufacturing. The ministry is looking for 10 different technology partners who are working on these coming and niche technologies and its details will be out in the public domain by September.