India is accelerating its layout in the new energy industry, sparking a large-scale procurement boom for Chinese lithium batteries and energy storage products. Since the beginning of this year, Indian renewable energy producer ACME Solar has purchased over 5GWh of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) from several leading Chinese companies, including a 2GWh order with Chuzhou Lishen and a 3.1GWh system previously purchased from Tianhe Energy Storage and Nandu Power, making it one of the largest energy storage procurement projects in Indian history.

Chinese enterprises continue to win the favor of the Indian market with their leading technological strength and supply chain advantages. In addition to ACME, Star Charging has recently reached an order for nearly 1GWh of energy storage with India's Prozeal Green Energy, providing them with a 5MWh centralized energy storage system. The delivery and grid connection are planned to be completed by the end of 2026.

In the field of power batteries, Indian commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland announced in early September that it has reached a strategic partnership with Chinese battery manufacturers, planning to invest over 500 billion rupees (approximately 40 billion yuan) in the next 7-10 years to jointly develop next-generation power and energy storage battery products and promote the construction of a localized battery supply chain.

This series of collaborations highlights the urgent demand for new energy technologies in the Indian market. Benefiting from the rapid growth of the electric vehicle market and the rigid demand for grid connected renewable energy storage, the Indian battery market is expected to grow from $8.4 billion in 2025 to $18.3 billion in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of over 17%.

Although the new energy vehicle industry in India is still in its infancy - with an electric vehicle penetration rate of less than 5% and only about 25000 charging infrastructure by 2024, the government has launched an ambitious development plan to increase the proportion of electric vehicle sales to 30% by 2030, accompanied by a mandatory 10%/2h energy storage allocation policy. It is expected to add approximately 14GW/28GWh of energy storage capacity by 2030.

Faced with huge market opportunities, Chinese industrial chain enterprises are entering the Indian market through multiple paths. Honeycomb Energy, Funeng Technology, Guoxuan High Tech, Yinghe Technology and other companies cooperate with local Indian enterprises through various means such as technology authorization, joint venture construction, and equipment output. Data shows that between 2023 and 2024, 75% of India's imported batteries will come from China.

R.C. Bagawa, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki Group in India, pointed out that although India has ambitious plans for the battery industry, the fragility of the lithium resource supply chain has become a key obstacle. He suggested enhancing supply chain security through equity cooperation with Chinese companies and other means. Indian media also commented that selectively establishing joint ventures with Chinese companies, jointly building charging infrastructure and component cooperation, will be an important path for India to quickly achieve the popularization of electric vehicles. Editor/Xu Shengpeng