RIL awarded 10 GWh Advanced Chemistry Cell capacity under PLI scheme; check details

The Ministry of Heavy Industries announced on Wednesday, September 4, that Reliance Industries (RIL), the oil-to-telecom conglomerate, has been granted approval to set up a battery manufacturing facility for up to 10 GW under the ₹3,620 crore production linked incentives (PLI) scheme for ACC Battery Storage.

This initiative is another step towards enhancing domestic manufacturing capacity, reducing import dependence, and positioning India as a global leader in ACC battery manufacturing, the ministry said in its press release.

The ministry had received bids from seven bidders under global tender for there-bidding of production-linked incentive (PLI) for 10 GWh Advanced Chemistry Cell Manufacturing with a maximum budgetary outlay of ₹3,620 crore, announced on January 24, 2024.

In May 2021, the Cabinet had approved the technology agnostic PLI Scheme on 'National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage’ for achieving a manufacturing capacity of fifty (50) gigawatt hours (GWh) of ACC with an outlay of ₹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) gigawatt hours (GWh), and the programme agreement with selected beneficiary firms was signed in July 2022, as per the release.

"All seven bids were evaluated, and six companies were shortlisted for financial evaluation as per the requirements under the RFP.

Accordingly, 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 Govt. of India," the release said further.

RFP stands for Request for Proposal.

The ministry informed that the final evaluation of the shortlisted bidders was carried out as per the 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 the highest 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 onwards.

"Bidders who were waitlisted under the program 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)."

Shares of RIL on Wednesday settled 0.43% higher at ₹3,032.50 apiece on the BSE.