ACC production: The Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) on January 24 announced the re-bidding of Production Linked Incentives (PLI) for 10 GWh Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) manufacturing, as per an official MHI statement.

The prospective applicants can now submit their bids to establish a domestic manufacturing facility for ACC, which in return helps them qualify for incentives under the PLI ACC scheme.

The bidding process will be held online through a two-stage process, under the Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS) mechanism through the Central Public Procurement (CPP) portal, said the executive agency of the Government of India.

The tender documents are available from January 24, while pre-bid conference has been scheduled for February 12.

The bid due date is April 22 and shall be opened on April 23.

The central government is currently focused on providing green public transport through Faster Adoption and Manufacturing Electric Vehicles (FAME-II) scheme to reduce dependence on fossil fuel and to address the issue of vehicular emissions, it said.

"Also, through the PLI Auto and Auto components scheme, MHI is supporting enhancement in India’s automobile manufacturing capabilities and exports of the vehicles, and automotive components to deepen localisation,  and a solid supply chain in areas of Advanced Automotive Technology (AAT) products," said Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union Minister of Heavy Industries.

In May 2021, the cabinet had approved the technology agnostic PLI Scheme on 'National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage’ for achieving manufacturing capacity of 50 GWh of ACC with an outlay of Rs 18,100 crore.

The first round of the ACC PLI bidding was concluded in March 2022, and three companies were allocated a total capacity of 30 giga watt hours (GWh), meanwhile, the program agreement with selected companies was signed in July last year.