New Delhi: The Indian government is preparing a new multibillion-dollar subsidy scheme for companies making electricity grid batteries as part of its transition to clean energy.
The draft proposal for a production-linked incentive subsidy scheme would offer Rs 21,600 crore ($2.63 billion) from this year through to 2030 for companies to set up manufacturing capacity for battery cells in India.
The draft plan acknowledged there was a limit to how much more coal power India could build.
“International opinion” and “environmental concerns make expansion of coal-based thermal generation beyond a limit, an infeasible option,” according to the draft plan.
Apart from energy transition, domestic battery cell manufacturing is also essential to reducing the country’s dependence on rival China for battery imports, the draft plan said.
“If India does not take urgent steps to set up local manufacturing capacity of battery energy storage systems, imperatives of our energy transition would lead to huge imports from China,” the proposal document said
