The Ministry of Heavy Industries announced on Wednesday the selection of Reliance Industries Ltd. under the Production Linked Incentive Scheme for advanced chemistry cell battery storage.

“Reliance Industries Limited has been awarded 10 gigawatt-hour ACC capacity under Production Linked Incentive Scheme based on QCBS mechanism,” the Ministry said in a statement.

QCBS is the acronym for quality and cost-based selection.  It is a method used to evaluate and select proposals based on quality and cost criteria.

“This initiative is another step towards enhancing domestic manufacturing capacity, reducing import dependence, and positioning India as a global leader in ACC battery manufacturing,” said the statement.

The Ministry said it had received bids from seven bidders under global tender for the bidding of PLI for 10 GWh ACC manufacturing with a maximum budgetary outlay of ₹3,620 crore announced on Jan. 24.

Other bidders to this tender were ACME Cleantech Solutions, Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies, Anvi Power Industries, JSW Neo Energy, Lucas TVS and Waaree Energies for a cumulative capacity of 70 GWh.

“All seven bids were evaluated, and six companies were shortlisted for financial evaluation as per the requirements under the RFP,” added the statement.

The financial bids for the qualified bidders were opened on Aug. 2 after the announcement of the technical evaluation results.

The Ministry said it awarded the 10 GWh PLI ACC capacity to the shortlisted bidder with the highest overall score, and the remaining five shortlisted bidders are put on the waiting list as per their rank, starting from Rank II onwards.

In May 2021, the Cabinet approved the technology-agnostic PLI Scheme for the National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell Battery Storage to achieve a manufacturing capacity of 50 GWh of ACC with an outlay of ₹18,100 crore.

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