The Indian Renewable Development Agency (IREDA), under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, has launched a program to promote the manufacture and deployment of infrastructure for emerging technologies, green mobility, and charging infrastructure.

The emerging technologies include battery energy storage systems (BESS) and manufacturing of batteries, projects involving the production of green hydrogen (electrolyzers), fuel cells, manufacturing and assembling plants of electric vehicles (EVs) and associated components, and waste recycling units.

IREDA will provide loans to the tune of 70% of the cost for the emerging technologies.

Under the program, IREDA will also provide financial assistance to EV fleet owners and operators and charging infrastructure owners.

The EV fleet owners and operators include fleet owners of commercial buses or similar passenger vehicles with a concession agreement with the state or central government agencies and fleets of commercial cars, bikes operating as a taxi service on the business-to-business and business-to-customer model.

The category of charging infrastructure owners includes electrical equipment for charging EVs, including land. Loans will also be available for charging through renewable energy.

The agency will provide loans to the tune of 80% of the project cost to EV fleet owners and owners of charging infrastructure.

To avail of a loan, the construction of the charging infrastructure should take place within one year or more in the case of renewable energy systems also being set up.

IREDA is already financing compressed biogas and bioethanol projects and plans to extend the financing for the entire value chain of green mobility.

The concession agreement will not have any exit clause until the loan tenure. Subsidies or grants by the central government or any state government will be adjusted against the loan sanctioned by IREDA.

Last September, the Union Government notified the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) program for automobile and auto components. The PLI program encourages the industry to make investments in advanced auto products. Incentives under the program are open to existing auto companies and new non-auto investors. It has two components — Champion OEM Incentive Program and Component Champion Incentive Program.

Earlier, the Department of Heavy Industry issued a notification for the PLI program ‘National program on Advanced Chemical Cell (ACC) battery storage.’