The Ministry of Heavy Industries’ (MHI) tender to select manufacturers for Advanced Chemistry Cells (ACC) under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) program has garnered bids seven times more than the 10 GWh capacity to be awarded.

The bidders are ACME Cleantech Solutions, Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies, Anvi Power Industries (Gensol Group), JSW Neo Energy, Reliance Industries, Lucas TVS, and Waaree Energies for a cumulative capacity of 70 GWh.

The ministry issued the tender in January this year following MHI’s announcement that it would re-issue the tender for the unallocated 20 GWh capacity under the ‘National Program on ACC Battery Storage.’

The budget for the capacity tendered is ₹36.2 billion (~$435.63 million).

In 2021, the government approved the technology-agnostic PLI program to implement 50 GWh of ACC manufacturing with an outlay of ₹181 billion (~$2.18 billion).

The initial bidding for the ACC Energy Storage PLI Program concluded in March 2022, with Ola Electric Mobility, Hyundai Global Motors, Reliance New Energy, and Rajesh Exports securing bids to set up 50 GWh capacity. However, Hyundai Global Motors withdrew from bidding, leaving behind an unallocated capacity of 20 GWh.

Once selected, bidders must commit to setting up an ACC manufacturing facility with value addition of a minimum of 25% within two years and a minimum of 60% value addition within five years.

They must also establish a manufacturing capacity of 5 to 10 GWh within five years. Based on their technical score, the bidders will be ranked from the highest to the lowest.

The subsidy disbursement will commence only after the committed capacity and value addition levels are achieved and the sale of the ACC begins.

The disbursement will be phased over a five-year window, payable quarterly, per the program agreement signed between the government and the selected bidder.

Bidders who had participated in the previous tender issued in 2021 were also eligible to participate in this tender, provided that the maximum capacity that may be allocated to such bidders, including the capacity allocated previously, does not exceed 20 GWh.