RIL’s manufacturing unit for ACC Battery storage under PLI gets nod

New Delhi: Reliance Industries Limited has been granted approval to set up a battery manufacturing facility for up to 10 GW under the Rs 3,620 crore-Production Linked Incentives (PLI) scheme for ACC Battery Storage, the government said on Wednesday. The Ministry of Heavy Industries had received bids from seven bidders under global tender for Production Linked Incentives (PLI) scheme for 10 GWh Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) manufacturing, with a maximum budgetary outlay of Rs 3,620 crore, announced on January 24, 2024.

The list of bidders who submitted bids in response to this tender were ACME Cleantech Solutions Private Limited, Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies Private Limited, Anvi Power Industries Private Limited, JSW Neo Energy Limited, Lucas TVS Limited, Reliance Industries Limited, and Waaree Energies Limited for a cumulative capacity of 70 GWh. All seven bids were evaluated, and six companies were shortlisted for financial evaluation as per the requirements under the RFP. "Reliance Industries Limited has been awarded 10 GWh ACC capacity under Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme based on QCBS mechanism," an official statement said.

The financial bids for the qualified bidders were opened on August 2, 2024, after the announcement of the results of the technical evaluation, under the transparent global tender process of RFP through the CPP portal of the government. "Final evaluation of the shortlisted bidders was carried out as per quality & cost-based selection (QCBS) mechanism and the bidders were ranked based on their combined technical and financial scores. "The ministry has awarded the 10 GWh PLI ACC capacity to the shortlisted bidder with highest the overall score, i.e., Reliance Industries Limited, and the remaining five shortlisted bidders are put on the waiting list as per their rank, starting from Rank II onward," the statement said.

The waitlisted bidders under the programme are ACME Cleantech Solutions Private Limited (Waitlist 1), Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies Private Limited (Waitlist 2), Waaree Energies Limited (Waitlist 3), JSW Neo Energy Limited (Waitlist 4), and Lucas TVS Limited (Waitlist 5). In May 2021, the Cabinet approved the technology-agnostic PLI Scheme on 'National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage' for achieving a manufacturing capacity of Fifty (50) Giga Watt hours (GWh) of ACC with an outlay of Rs 18,100 crore. The first round of the ACC PLI bidding was concluded in March 2022, and three beneficiary firms were allocated a total capacity of Thirty (30) giga-watt hours (GWh), and the programme agreement with selected beneficiary firms was signed in July 2022.