NEW DELHI : To attain India’s climate goals, a significant amount of grid storage and a large increase in the number of electric vehicles are needed and it is the right time to support development of a domestic battery manufacturing ecosystem, according to a report by federal policy think tank NITI Aayog and a non-government organisation.
A matured domestic battery manufacturing ecosystem is expected to create competitive advantages and contribute to India’s energy security, said the NITI Aayog report published jointly with RMI India. This will require a combination of demand and supply-side measures, said the report titled ‘need for advanced chemistry cell energy storage in India’ released on Thursday. It pointed out that energy storage has reach and leverage across numerous sectors of India’s economy.
Currently, India has negligible presence in the global supply chain for making advanced cell technologies, the report said. Manufacturing these advanced energy storage devices in India could allow domestically sourced batteries to cater to the demand generated from EVs, grid storage applications, consumer electronics and other uses, the report said.
“It is an opportune time for India to step forward and support the development of a domestic battery manufacturing ecosystem that meets its future energy storage market needs and helps reduce its dependence on imports to meet the future advanced energy economy demands,” the report said.
India has committed to producing 500 GW of non-fossil fuel-based energy by 2030 and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.
To attain these targets, India needs a significant amount of grid storage and a large increase in the number of electric vehicles which requires stepping up local manufacturing and allowing global competition in sunrise sectors such as energy storage, the report said.
“India is at a nascent stage of creating a domestic cell manufacturing ecosystem. There is, however, an enormous potential for large-scale battery manufacturing,” the report said. The expected scale and growth of the country’s battery market is substantial enough to warrant gigascale manufacturing capacity in the years ahead, it said.
Source: livemint.com
