Govt selects four firms for Rs 18,000 crore PLI scheme for ACC battery

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

The Ministry of Heavy Industries said that the selected companies would have to set up the manufacturing facilities within a period of two years, following which the incentive will be expended over a period of five years on sale of batteries manufactured in India.

Ten companies had submitted their bids under the ACC battery storage programme for which the request for proposal (RFP) was released in October last year. 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. The scheme was open to receiving applications till January 14 and the technical bids were opened on January 15.

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.”

The ministry further noted, “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.”

The government approved the PLI Scheme 'National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage' with a budgetary outlay of Rs 18,100 crore. The programme 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 FDI in the country.