NITI Aayog estimates that India will need six such gigawatt-scale facilities (of 10GWh each) by 2025 and 12 by 2030.
Tesla has shown interest in the Indian government’s plan to build large factories to make lithium-ion batteries at an investment of about ₹50,000 crore.
China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd (CATL) and BYD Co. Ltd are among the other firms that have shown an interest in the mega project.
According government officials aware of the matter, the plan to set up these 50-gigawatt hour (GWh) factories has been cleared by EFC (expenditure finance committee), with the final tender expected to be awarded by February.
Each gigawatt hour (1,000 megawatt hours) of battery capacity can power 1 million homes for an hour and around 30,000 electric cars.
Federal policy think tank NITI Aayog is leading the move to build the giga plants and aims to replicate Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada which it uses to power cars like Model 3, S and X.
Next Step- Cabinet Clearance
All cabinet clearances are expected by September, post which the international tender will be floated, the officials said.
“The EFC clearance has come. The evaluation won’t take much time. The minimum ceiling for bidding is 5GWh, with the maximum allowed quantum of 20GWh.”
“All the top global manufacturers, including Tesla, have evinced interest. We will get more clarity once the tender documents are bought,” they added.
NITI Aayog estimates that India will need six such gigawatt-scale facilities (of 10GWh each) by 2025 and 12 by 2030. While this doesn’t include the export market potential, the base scenario envisions 11 such giga factories by 2025 and 24 by 2030.
Source: Livemint
