A joint venture between Switzerland’s lithium-ion battery manufacturer Leclanche and India’s Exide Industries, Nexcharge has already set up a manufacturing unit in Gujarat
Nexcharge, a provider of customised energy storage solutions, is reportedly exploring the prospect of setting up a gigafactory by leveraging the PLI scheme for ACC batteries to expand its business.
In a conversation with Hindu BusinessLine, CEO Stefan Louis said, “We are evaluating the prospect of setting up of a gigafactory with a capacity of about 10 GWh and plan to explore the possibility of taking advantage of the Government’s Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell battery.”
“While the project, both in terms of location and investments is still exploratory, in nature, typically a 10 GWh factory could entail an investment of about ₹4,000-5,000 crore. The scheme is designed such that once the factory is established and production commences, the incentives get disbursed, making it globally competitive,”
A joint venture between Switzerland’s lithium-ion battery manufacturer Leclanche and India’s Exide Industries, Nexcharge has already set up a manufacturing unit in Gujarat with an outlay of ₹250 crore and a capacity of 1.5 GigaWatt Hour (GWh) capacity. The firm expects to begin full-fledged operations at the plant by September 2021.
The government, in May this year, had approved the PLI Scheme for ACC Battery Storage with an outlay of ₹18,100 crore with a goal to establish domestic manufacturing capacity of 50 GWh of ACC and five GWh of Niche ACC capacity.
“The scheme is designed such that either we can have three manufacturers or 10 depending on the capacity,” he told the publication.
The factory at Prantij, Sabarkantha, Gujarat is equipped with fully automated assembly lines with robots for li-ion battery packs, modules (Pouch/ Prismatic/ Cylindrical), and cell testing labs. It is supported by an in-house R&D facility in Bangalore.
