(Bloomberg) --
India's largest gigafactory for batteries will start operating in October, and plans to almost triple its capacity by 2026, according to its owner, battery-maker Good Enough Energy.
Capacity will rise to 20 gigawatt-hours by 2026 from an initial 7 gigawatt-hours, and the company will invest a total of 4.5 billion rupees ($54 million) on building the plant in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, founder Akash Kaushik said in an interview at an industry event in Delhi on Tuesday.
India's accelerating energy transition may see battery demand rise to as much as 260 gigawatt-hours by 2030, according to government projections. That trend will encourage battery makers to pursue expansion, Kaushik said.
However, the Modi administration recently pledged a drastic expansion of the country's coal fleet, promising to boost existing capacity by 88 gigawatts, or about a third of the current total, to prevent power outages. Meanwhile, renewable energy installations, which rely on battery storage, have been affected by import restrictions and policy uncertainty.
For now, “thermal has to coexist with renewables,” Kaushik said. Still, a solar-plus-battery system already produces power at around 6 rupees a kilowatt-hour, “way less than thermal,” he added.
The closely held company will employ a proprietary technology that increases a battery's lifespan and safety by regulating its temperature to prevent overheating, Kaushik said.
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