Energetica India nº91 July August 2020

RENEWABLE ENERGY giga factories, state governments and MSME ministry need to support small scale industries to diversify into compo- nent supply, Policy on raw materials and ancillary business area of energy stor- age & EV manufacturing. The Ministry of Mines and other governmental bod- ies should invest and allow the explora- tion of raw materials in India. Also, India needs to focus on developing material processing capabilities with appropriate quality to supply to advanced storage manufacturing ecosystem.The govern- ment should create a separate body to promote export of advanced batteries and ESS solutions and drive trains to other countries. New skill development and reskilling should be the priority of the government for the advanced technology sector. As the leading industry alliance, IESA is working on the above areas and recy- cling batteries in India. We anticipate significant investments from Indian conglomerates looking to diversify in energy storage and EVs in the next 3-5 years. This would require sustained pol- icy push and a strong will to implement the policies in a timely fashion by the government. Recently the EV policy announcement by States like Delhi and Telangana will catalyze the manufacturing and adop- tion of energy storage and EV in these states. During the 3rd IESA AtmaNirbhar Bharat Roundtable Mr. Satendar Singh, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Mines, Gov- ernment of India said that the Ministry of Mines is looking for the availability of minerals required in making batteries. As far as availability of lithium is con- cerned the ministry is mainly looking at a few minerals bearing lithium. Geolog- ical Survey of India (GSI) is actively do- ing exploration work for these minerals. So far, there have been encouraging results from the state of Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Rajasthan. The initial find - ings indicate that there could be pos- sible lithium-bearing minerals [in these states]. In the Purulia district, West Bengal, they have found a deposit of pegmatite which has around 1.05% of lithium in it. They are further working on these findings and trying to locate all such areas to establish actual reserves and resources that we find in India.” Last month, an MoU was signed be- tween KABIL from India and JEMSE from Argentina for sourcing of lithium and cobalt. There is a need to reduce dependence on the import of lithium ion batteries, one of the key components in electric vehicles (EVs), road trans- port and highways minister Nitin Gad- kari said on 6thAugust during IESA’s India eMobility Conclave (IMC 2020). In e-mobility technology, the most imp thing is we should not depend on import the material used to make these vehi- cles. Our priority is to make all these materials, particularly lithium ion batter- ies in India, Gadkari said at the e-mobil- ity conclave. Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), signed an MoU with In- 34 energetica INDIA- July-Aug_2020