Four firms selected for Rs 18,000 crore PLI scheme for ACC battery

Four companies including Reliance New Energy Solar Limited, Ola Electric Mobility Private Limited, Hyundai Global Motors Company Limited and Rajesh Exports Limited, have been selected to receive incentives under the government's Rs 18,100 crore Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) battery storage, the government said on Thursday.

Commenting on the PLI Scheme for ACC Battery Storage, Union Minister for Heavy Industries Mahendra Nath Pandey said, "Increase in demand for EVs due to a favourable regulatory framework, has mainly attracted investment in this sector. Today big companies are investing in electric vehicle manufacturing in India and are interested to join us. We should give them more encouragement and keep trying to make India a manufacturing hub."

Total 10 companies submitted their bids under the Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage Programme in India for which Request for Proposal (RFP) was released by the Ministry of Heavy Industries on 22nd October 2021. The scheme was open for receiving applications till 14th January 2022 and the Technical Bids were opened on 15th January 2022.

All the 10 bids were evaluated and 9 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, 2022, at 11.45 AM after the announcement of the results of the technical evaluation under the transparent global tender process of RFP, the Ministry of Heavy Industries said in a statement.

"Final evaluation of the Selected Bidders was carried out as per Quality & Cost Based Selection (QCBS) mechanism and the bidders were ranked on the basis of their combined technical and financial score. The ACC capacities have been allocated in order of their rank, till a cumulative capacity of 50 GWh per year," it said.

The ministry said the selected companies would have to set up the manufacturing facilities within a period of two years. The incentive will be disbursed thereafter over a period of five years on sale of batteries manufactured in India.

The Government approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme 'National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage' for achieving manufacturing capacity of 50 Giga Watt Hour (GWh) of ACC for enhancing India's manufacturing capabilities with a budgetary outlay of Rs 18,100 crore.

Under this initiative, the emphasis of the Government is to achieve greater domestic value addition, while at the same time ensure that the levelised cost of battery manufacturing in India is globally competitive.

The programme is designed in such a manner that it is technology agnostic. The beneficiary firm shall be free to choose suitable advanced technology and the corresponding plant and machinery, raw material and other intermediate goods for setting up cell manufacturing facility to cater to any application.

The programme envisages an investment that will boost domestic manufacturing and also facilitate battery storage demand creation for both electric vehicles and stationary storage along with the development of a complete domestic supply chain and Foreign Direct Investment in the country.

ACC PLI scheme is expected to accelerate EV adoption and hence translate into net savings of Rs 2,00,000 crore to Rs 2,50,000 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, the ministry said.

( With inputs from ANI )