Centre Begins Re-Auction For 10 GWh Tranche Of Acc Battery PLI Scheme

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Wednesday announced re-bidding for the 10 Gigawatt hour (Gwh) tranche of the total 20 GWh capacity under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for the advanced chemistry cell (ACC) battery storage. A budgetary outlay of Rs 3,620 crore has been earmarked as the incentive against setting up this battery manufacturing capacity in the latest round.

In the current bidding process, the prospective applicants can submit their bids to set up a domestic manufacturing facility for ACC, which will help them qualify for incentives under the PLI ACC scheme, the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) said.

“The bidding process will be held online through a transparent two-stage process, under the Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS) mechanism through the CPP Portal,” MHI said in a statement.

The capacity could not be awarded as one of the conditionally qualified candidates Hyundai Global Motors exited the bidding process. A separate round of bids will be called for another 10 Gwh of incentives targeted for stationery battery applications like renewable energy storage and power management. The pre-bid conference is scheduled to be held on February 12. The bid due date is April 22 and bids shall be opened on April 23.

Commenting on the re-bidding, Minister of Heavy Industries Mahendra Nath Pandey, said the ministry is supporting the growth of India’s manufacturing capabilities and exports in the automobile sector and MHI is fully committed for taking forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s self-reliant (Atmanirbhar) and developed India (Viksit Bharat) initiatives.

“Keeping this in mind, in recent years, the Ministry of Heavy Industries has taken several initiatives to promote environmentally friendly product manufacturing in the automotive industry, such as PLI-Auto, PLI-Advanced Chemistry Cell and FAME-II schemes.” Pandey said.

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

The government had initially declared Hyundai Global Motors as one of the four eligible players out of the nine who applied for the  PLI scheme. However, it was forced to re-examine its offer after the South Korean automobile giant Hyundai Motor Company issued a public statement in August 2022 saying it had no link with Hyundai Global Motors and the latter was not authorised to use the Hyundai trademark and logo.

Hyundai Global Motors thereafter backed out of the scheme. Out of the four companies that were declared bid winners, Rajesh Exports quoted an interest and got 5 Gwh capacity, followed by Hyundai Global Motors which was rewarded 20 GWh of capacity. The third player was Ola Electric which was awarded another 20 Gwh and the fourth was Reliance New Energy Solar which wanted 20 Gwh but received the remaining 5 Gwh.

Earlier, the MHI announced that commercial production of battery cells under the PLI is anticipated to begin in Q4FY24.

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