Reliance Industries (RIL) and Softbank Group-backed Ola Electric will receive incentives under India’s $2.4 billion program to boost local battery cell production after winning a tender, Reuters news report said.
The winning bidders also include Hyundai Global Motors and Indian jewellery maker Rajesh Exports.
The Indian government last year finalized a program to encourage companies to make battery cells locally as it seeks to establish a domestic supply chain for clean transport and renewable energy storage to meet its decarbonisation goals.
Ola Electric and Hyundai will get incentives for 20 gigawatt hours (Gwh) capacity while Reliance and Rajesh Exports have won incentives for 5 Gwh.
Ola Electric earlier said it has appointed Prabhakar Patil, the former chief of LG Chem Power, to its board, and has plans to set up 50 Gwh of storage capacity.
Battery cell manufacturing is dominated by a handful of Asian companies, including CATL, LG Energy Solutions and Panasonic. The government wants domestic production and plans to establish a total of 50 Gwh of battery storage capacity over five years.
Ten companies submitted bids to manufacture a total of about 130 Gwh of storage capacity. These include automaker Mahindra & Mahindra, battery makers Amara Raja and Exide Industries, and engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T).
Refining giant Reliance has acquired two battery companies for about $200 million – UK-based Faradion, which makes sodium-ion batteries, and Lithium Werks, which manufactures lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Exide has entered into a long-term technical collaboration with China’s SVOLT Energy to set up a plant to manufacture lithium-ion battery cells.