Import duty waivers on critical minerals such as lithium are set to bring down the costs of batteries both for electric vehicles and energy storage, according to INOXGFL Group’s executive director Devansh Jain.
“Battery chemicals constitute about 35% of the value of EV batteries. Reducing import duties on lithium and other critical minerals will help lower battery costs, thereby decreasing the overall cost of EVs,” he said. “The initiative, along with the PLI scheme, will spur further investments in EV battery manufacturing in the country.”
Jain also highlighted the waiver impact on the energy storage space, where battery storage could play an important part in round-the-clock power projects that are being tendered out.
“Going ahead, in FY25, 15-20 GW of hybrid, round-the-clock and firm, dispatchable renewable energy tenders are expected to be awarded. With this, battery energy storage systems will also gain traction. However, the current cost of battery storage remains prohibitively high for large-scale, mainstream adoption, we need a significant reduction in the battery costs,” said Jain.
Jain’s flagship company, the erstwhile Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL), has announced a INR 6,000 crore investment for producing materials like electrolyte salts, additives and electrolyte formulations, cathode active materials like lithium iron phosphate and binders for the cathodes. These are used in EV and energy storage system batteries.
Inox Wind and Inox Green Energy Services are also part of INOXGFL. The former is into manufacturing of wind energy equipment and the latter into operations and maintenance of wind farms. The group has also forayed into wind and solar energy generation.
INOXGFL group companies have raised fresh capital recently. Inox Wind has raised INR 900 crore and Inox Green Energy Services.has raised INR 1,050 crore.
