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The government on Friday said it will soon introduce a 10-gigawatt (GW) scheme for those working to build stationary, grid-scale energy storage systems. 

Addressing an international summit organised by the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) in the national capital, Vijay Mittal, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Heavy Industries, said the ministry “will be coming out with a 10 gigawatt request for proposal (RFP) for those who are working on the energy storage part of it, for grid-scale energy storage systems, in association with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and NITI Aayog”.

Apart from the electric vehicle (EV) mobility-specific development, "we should have indigenous capability for manufacturing battery energy storage system-compatible advanced chemistry cells (ACCs)," he mentioned.

According to Mittal, the Ministry of Heavy Industry is leading the mission of indigenous manufacturing of chemistry cells in the country as part of its EV initiative.

“Our goal is to achieve Net Zero by 2070 and reduce the need for imports of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, addressing environmental concerns. This journey began over three years ago, and we have allocated over 40 gigawatt-hours out of 50 gigawatts to various OEMs for indigenous manufacturing of ACC,” he informed.

In May 2021, the Cabinet had approved the PLI scheme on 'National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage’ for achieving manufacturing capacity of 50 GWh of ACC with an outlay of Rs 18,100 crore.

Several Indian national labs and startups are working on the development of advanced lithium technologies, including lithium sulphur and solid-state batteries, etc.

With these opportunities, IESA expect the Indian industry to need to increase its investment 5 times in the next five years.

“The lithium-ion battery industry is crucial to India's clean energy goals. This summit will help shape the roadmap for the country’s transition to sustainable energy, presenting a unique opportunity for Indian and global players to collaborate and innovate,” said Debi Prasad Dash, President of IESA.

The country is expecting a cumulative demand of 600-900 GWh lithium batteries by 2032. According to Dr Rahul Walwalker, Chairman of IESA, many countries are looking for an alternative to relying solely on China, creating a potential market opportunity of up to 2,500 gigawatt hours for the supply chain in India.