India to Invest $455 mn Towards Battery Storage Systems

Soumik Dutta | NT

India will invest $455.2 mn to incentivise battery storage production under a scheme announced earlier this year.

The government's aim is to introduce 4,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of battery storage under the scheme, details of which are yet to be disclosed. The project will see the $455.2m divided up into financial incentives for participating companies.

Currently, the largest battery storage project in the country is the 20,000 kW Phyang solar PV project, developed by Tata Power Solar Systems which uses other storage technology. In 2019, India introduced a ‘National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage’.

The government is in the process of opening tenders to set up a 50GW battery manufacturing base at around $50 billion in investment. The mission drew up a five-year phased manufacturing program (PMP) till 2024 to support setting up a few large-scale, export-competitive integrated batteries and cell-manufacturing giga-plants in India and to localise production across the entire EV value chain.

The Indian Ministry of Mines reported the discovery of 5.9 million tons of lithium deposits in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.

This deposit alone makes India the country with the fifthlargest lithium reserves in the world. This is the first major discovery of lithium in India with the only other being a small deposit of 1,600 tonnes found in Karnataka two years ago.

India currently imports lithium which for ms around 80% of the total lithium used in the country. This discovery could draw dependence away from the lithium triangle made up of Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia.

Approximately, 75% of the world’s lithium supply lies beneath the salt flats of these three nations. While lithium is associated with efforts toward carbon neutrality, experts have cautioned against the environmental impacts of the mine itself.

The Himalayan region between Jammu and Kashmir is an eco-sensitive region, mining could lead to a loss of biodiversity.

NITI Aayog (National Institute for Transforming India), the premier policy think-tank of the government of India is working to seek proposals from states to identify locations for plants and to provide duty waivers and exemptions to selected manufacturers.

The states have been asked to reduce state goods and services tax (GST), provide concessional electricity, and facilitate land acquisition, single-window clearance, and environmental clearance. Earlier this year, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) announced it was in discussions with the LIBCOIN consortium to construct India’s first lithium-ion battery (LIB) giga-factory.

The plan is to build a 1GWh plant initially and scale up to 30GWh in due course. Simultaneously, the state-owned consortium Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL) which is a joint venture of three central public sector undertakings – National Aluminum Company (NALCO), Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL) and Mineral Exploration Corporation Ltd (MECL) – has been formed to identify, explore, acquire, develop and process strategic minerals overseas.

The KABIL delegation recently visited the lithium triangle countries. KABIL and Bolivian state-owned Yacimientos del Litio Bolivianos (YLB Corporation) are expected to agree to a joint venture for setting up a lithium battery plant in India.

India and Bolivia have also agreed to have a partnership that would see India invest in developing Bolivia’s massive lithium deposits and Bolivia would facilitate supplies of lithium carbonate to India.