National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell Battery Storage | UPSC PIB NEWS

National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell Battery Storage

Cabinet approved PLI scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage.

Background:

◆ ACCs are the new generation of advanced storage technologies that can store electric energy either as electrochemical or as chemical energy and convert it back to electric energy as and when required.

◆ Consumer electronics, electric vehicles, advanced electricity grids, solar rooftop, etc. which are major battery consuming sectors are expected to achieve robust growth in the coming years.

◆ It is expected that the dominant battery technologies will control some of the world’s largest growth sectors.

◆ While several companies have already started investing in battery packs, the capacities of these facilities are too small when compared to global averages.

◆ There still is negligible investment in manufacturing, along with value addition, of ACCs in India.

◆ All the demand of the ACCs is currently being met through imports in India.

◆ The scheme is expected to reduce import dependency.

About the National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell Battery Storage:

◆ It is basically a ₹18,100 crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for building Tesla-style giga factories to manufacture batteries.

◆ The plan is to set up 50 giga watt hour (GWh) manufacturing capacity for advance chemistry cell batteries by attracting investments totaling ₹45,000 crore.

◆ One GWh (1,000-megawatt hour) of battery capacity is sufficient to power 1 million homes for an hour and around 30,000 electric cars.

◆ The scheme, coming under the department of heavy industry, may boost India’s green energy credentials.

◆ It is among the PLI schemes worth ₹1.97 trillion announced by the government last year for 13 sectors. The goal is to create global manufacturing champions in the country and attract firms exploring a China-plus-one strategy for production.

◆ As part of the scheme, each selected ACC battery storage manufacturer would have to commit to set up an ACC manufacturing facility of minimum 5GWh capacity and ensure a minimum 60% domestic value addition at the project level within five years.

◆ The incentive will be paid out on the basis of sales, energy efficiency, battery life cycle, and localization levels.

◆ The beneficiary firms have to achieve a domestic value addition of at least 25% and make the mandatory investment of ₹225 crore /GWh within 2 years (at the mother unit level) and raise it to 60% domestic value addition within 5 years.

Significance:

◆ Such battery storages will cater not only to electric vehicles but also to the consumer electronics industry and electricity grids.

◆ This gains importance given India’s ambitious clean energy targets and the intermittent nature of electricity from clean energy sources such as solar and wind.

◆ In such a scenario, storage holds the key for providing on-demand electricity from wind and solar projects.



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