Lithium Ion Batteries Tender

ScopeTesla and Chinas Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd CATL are among the companies that have shown an initial interest in the Indian governments plan to build large factories to make lithium-ion batteries at an investment of about 50000 crore. The robust global interest comes amid a strong push by the government to make India a global manufacturing hub for electric vehicles and their components. This is aimed at arresting the South Asian countrys reputation as the worlds third-largest crude oil importer saving on precious foreign exchange and also controlling pollution in its major cities. This is a multibillion dollar opportunity. The EFC expenditure finance committee meeting has been done. It will now come up in the cabinet. Aimed at securing Indias energy needs the plan to set up these 50-gigawatt hour GWh factories has been cleared by EFC with the final tender expected to be awarded by February. Each gigawatt hour 1000 megawatt hours of battery capacity can power 1 million homes for an hour and around 30000 electric cars. Tesla is still to launch its electric cars in India. The programme also aims to be technology-agnostic meaning it will be left to the market to determine which technology is best suited for the country depending on demand and price. We are expecting all cabinet clearances by September. Post that the international tender will be floated. The EFC clearance has come. The evaluation wont take much time. The minimum ceiling for bidding is 5GWh with the maximum allowed quantum of 20GWh. According to a conservative scenario envisaged by NITI Aayog India will need six such gigawatt-scale facilities of 10GWh each by 2025 and 12 by 2030. While this doesnt include the export market potential the base scenario envisions 11 such giga factories by 2025 and 24 by 2030. Large batteries should be brought to the clean energy play to help use infirm power such as wind and solar. We first need it on a large scale to cater to the internal demand. All the top global manufacturers including Tesla have evinced interest. We will get more clarity once the tender documents are bought. Besides electric vehicles such battery storages will cater to electricity grids given the intermittent nature of electricity from clean energy sources such as solar and wind. India has become one of the top renewable energy producers globally with an installed renewable energy capacity of about 80 gigawatts GW with plans to achieve 175GW by 2022 and 500GW by 2030 as part of its climate commitments.