Govt to soon open bids for remaining PLI sops for battery manufacturing

The Centre will soon invite bids for building 10 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery energy storage systems to sanction the remaining cash payouts earmarked for the domain under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for advanced chemistry cells (PLI-ACC), said a top government official on Friday.

Speaking virtually at an event organized by the India Energy Storage Alliance in New Delhi, Vijay Mittal, joint secretary of the ministry of heavy industries, said: "…soon we will be coming out with a 10GWh RFP (request for proposal) for those who are working on energy storage part of it for grid-scale energy storage systems." 

The new RFP will be in association with the ministry of new and renewable energy as well the federal policy think tank NITI Aayog, he added.

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Mittal said incentivising the building of a local energy storage system was essential to complement the country's rapid growth in electric mobility. 

He added that by 2030, a large chunk of the country's requirement of energy storage, which may be in the range of 110-150GWh, will be manufactured domestically.

Energy storage  

So far, the government has awarded 40GWh of battery storage system manufacturing capacity to Ola Electric Mobility, Rajesh Exports Ltd and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) under the ₹18,100 crore PLI-ACC scheme announced in 2021.

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Advanced chemistry cells are new-generation technologies that can store electric energy as electrochemical or chemical energy and convert it back to electric energy when required. The PLI scheme is expected to strengthen India's ecosystem for electric mobility and battery storage.

On 4 September, the heavy industries ministry awarded 10GWh capacity—worth ₹3,620 crore in incentives—to RIL.

RIL won the 5 GWh battery capacity in 2022 when the government distributed 30 GWh of battery manufacturing capacity. Ola Electric Mobility was awarded 20 GWh capacity, while Rajesh Exports won 5 GWh.

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The government's short-term estimates for energy storage capacity demand showed that India would need approximately 35GWh of battery energy storage systems by 2026-27, and this demand will only grow exponentially, as the country transitions to battery energy storage systems from pumped storage plants. 

The Central Electricity Authority has also projected that by 2047, the requirement for energy storage is expected to increase to 2,380 GWh, of which 1,840 GWh will be met through battery energy storage systems due to the addition of a large amount of renewable energy.