Our south Asia correspondent Dipak Sen Chaudhuri reports on how India’s drive towards renewable energy in rural and semi-rural communities looks set to boost usage of lithium‑ion for energy storage applications.
The story that we have been following since the Summer issue (BEST No. 41) is picking up pace. In July it was announced that Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL), a group company of corporate India’s first family, the Ambanis, had placed a €35m (US$47m) order with France’s Saft for lithium‑ion battery packs.
The packs will be used as the exclusive back-up battery for all mobile broadband base stations for RJIL’s upcoming 4G operations. Little extra detail about the ‘specialised’ packs is available, but it looks to be a ‘moment of truth’ for the Indian battery industry.
In an immediate scramble, other telecom operators are fast-tracking their alternative storage technology plans, mostly lithium-ion. At least one such operator has decided to test the technology in 7 000-10 000 base transceiver station towers, across the country in some of the most power-starved locations.
In a queer turn of events however, India’s power shortage has unexpectedly started showing a reverse trend. Improved power generation, reduction of transmission losses, a less oppressive summer and early monsoon have all contributed to an easing of the power deficit.
This has spelled a major ‘seasonal demand’ problem for suppliers of batteries and home UPS systems, commonly known as inverters. In recent years this segment has been a major revenue earner and a handsome contributor to profits, but almost all manufacturers of batteries and inverters have had to take a major hit in their top-line as well as bottom-line.
Nevertheless, not for a moment should it be thought the sudden improvement in grid power supply will change the need for back-up power in the telecoms sector. Telecoms installations are increasingly in rural and semi-rural locations where grid power, even if available, will continue to be unreliable.
An interesting development that is taking place in the telecoms sector originates in what has already reported in the last issue, namely the regulatory authorities directive to tower operators to ‘hybridise’ their power requirement by having a combination of renewable and grid power as the available source of energy.
The tower operating companies (TOWERCOs) are virtually being asked to be power generation companies! They have expectedly expressed their difficulties in venturing into areas beyond their core-competence and also the enormous financial outlays required for the same.
In India, both manufacturers and users of renewable sources enjoy a fat government subsidy, the TOWERCOs have requested the government of India to extend this support to them. However, the total money required for this— hybridizing 20% of all urban towers and 50% of all rural towers— is huge and beyond the budgets of the concerned departments of the government.
It is in this background India is now seeing the arrival of renewable energy supply chain opportunities (RESCOs). These are large facilities of renewable energy generation located in the rural and semi‑rural heartlands, which would have sufficient capacity to supply power to three, four or even five of the towers and also providing the villagers in the vicinity with community lighting— domestic as well street-lights, recharging solar lanterns and perhaps also power up their major source of entertainment— the community television!
The concept is hugely appealing to the tower companies as they no longer have to bother about power generation including managing pilferages, which extend from solar panels to batteries, and are quite prepared to commit to be ‘anchor users’ of such projects to ensure financial viability of the RESCOs.
On the other hand as the local communities would benefit and depend on the sustained availability of these renewable sources, the villagers would ensure their safe operation free from pilferages.
This seems to be a win-win situation for both tower companies as well as the proponents of green energy. The storage technology continues to be central to the success of this model, except the requirements slightly change. They would have to be compatible with ‘renewable energy generation’ and immediately the whole question goes towards superior charge acceptance of high power generation. It does seem lithium-ion all the way……
ABC: One little Indian
As the 15th Asian Battery Conference came to a glittering end, it was time for a reality check, so far as storage battery technology in India is concerned. Indians were present in large numbers— perhaps in terms of participants they were as many Indians you could find as Chinese.
However, only one out of a total of 40 papers presented in the conference was by an Indian. It was perhaps unfortunate that this Indian gentleman reviewing the Indian battery industry was representing a Bangladesh battery manufacturer!
Yet, this has been a good conference for India. As many as eleven Indian organisations were amongst the exhibitors— China had 26. These included battery manufacturers, component manufacturers and alloy producers, to name a few.
Maximum interest was noted, at least in terms of footfall, in manufacturers who have stepped out of the routine and developed components quite unique and different from current practice.
This includes a separator manufacturer— Raman FibreScience— and a tubular plate gauntlet manufacturer, KE‑Technical Textiles, who had caught the attention of the prospective buyers with their own technology. There will be more on these and other such companies in the coming months, as they are worth watching.
Generally the exhibitors were pleased at the interest they created and in a few cases the preliminary responses they got. Even if only a percentage of these responses get converted to sustained business, they believe, the conference will have been a big success for the Indian businessmen.
