Partnerships will determine whether India can emerge as a global hub for battery manufacturing and energy storage. This was a key takeaway from a discussion between industry leaders and policymakers at the Energy Storage Summit India 2025, held in Greater Noida last week by our publisher, Solar Media. During the panel discussion titled ‘How India Can Be the Next Global Supplier Hub?’, moderated by Shubhra Thakur, country director – India, Long Duration Energy Storage Council (LDES Council), panelists underscored that India’s ambitions to become a manufacturing powerhouse depend on ecosystem development, technology partnerships, and policy coherence across ministries. Thakur said that India’s growing energy demand and the corresponding need for large-scale storage infrastructure. Citing projections from the National Electricity Plan, she said India’s energy storage requirement could reach 400GWh by 2032 – a figure that dwarfs the country’s current domestic cell production capacity of just 2GWh. “Globally, around 500GWh of annual battery manufacturing capacity exists today, but much of it is concentrated in a single region,” she said. “As supply chains diversify and countries seek to de-risk from regional dependencies, India stands at a pivotal moment – we must decide whether to remain a large energy market or become a global supplier where the entire value chain thrives.” Collaboration over isolation Manu Srivastava, additional chief secretary, Government of Madhya Pradesh, urged policymakers and industry stakeholders to move away from protectionism and towards global collaboration. “Over the past few years, we seem to have developed a tendency to identify certain ‘villains’ in the global economy – to see the world as a film with clear heroes and antagonists,” he said. “But earlier, we believed in the world as a global village, where efficiency and collaboration determined progress. Returning to that mindset would be far more effective.” He argued that creating barriers to technology, trade, or knowledge transfer is counterproductive to India’s ambitions. “If our goal is to lower costs domestically and become a robust supply hub, we cannot afford isolation. We must work with global partners, learn from established ecosystems, and leverage their strengths to accelerate our own growth,” he added. “When something is looked after by more than one department, it often ends up being looked after by none,” he noted, referring to the fragmented oversight of renewable manufacturing across ministries. “However, coordination is improving, and several states are taking proactive steps.” Srivastava highlighted the Mohasa-Babai industrial area in Madhya Pradesh’s Shajapur district, developed to promote renewable manufacturing. The zone offers incentives, including capital subsidies, R&D grants, and training programmes, to attract investors in clean energy and battery production. (ICE NEW DELHI)

Fonte notizia: Energy Storage News