The Amara Raja Group on Saturday held a groundbreaking ceremony for their Customer Qualification Plant for cell manufacturing and inaugurated Phase 1 of the battery pack plant with a current capacity of 1.5 GWh in Mahabubnagar district of Telangana.

Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies (ARACT), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amara Raja Energy & Mobility Limited (ARE&M), one of industrial and automotive battery majors, held the ceremony.

Along with the battery pack plant inauguration and foundation stone laying ceremony of the Customer Qualification Plant (CQP), Amara Raja signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Piaggio.

The battery maker had earlier signed an MoU with the state government for setting up research and development and a greenfield manufacturing facility for Lithium-Ion battery-making in the state with an ultimate capacity up to 16 GWh and a Battery Pack Assembly unit up to 5 GWh with an investment of Rs 9,500 crore.

"The first phase of it (16 MWh), when we are getting to 8 to 10 GWh, we are planning to do it with our own internal accruals and borrowings. But to go beyond that, we need to raise money through equity," Jayadev Galla, Chairman and MD of ARE&M, told reporters in a press conference.

Phase 1 of the battery pack plant which was inaugurated with a current capacity of 1.5 GWh, makes Li-ion battery packs specifically suited for Indian conditions and they will be supplied to major EV OEMs along with being used for stationary energy storage requirements, a senior official said.

The CQP, which is all set to be operational by the first quarter of the next financial year, can produce various cell types for customer testing and validation, he further said.

Amara Raja will collaborate with Piaggio Vehicles Private Limited to develop and supply LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) Lithium-Ion (Li-ion) cells and chargers for its EV 3-wheelers along with developing cells and battery packs for their upcoming 2-wheeler offerings, produced locally. It had recently signed a MoU with Ather Energy as well.

Amara Raja has manufactured and supplied 50,000 NMC Li-ion battery packs and EV chargers exclusively to Piaggio India which has had a cumulative run of over 120 crore kms till now.

Recently, Amara Raja entered into an agreement with Gotion-InoBat-Batteries that will facilitate it to localise current global LFP technology for making Lithium-Ion cells specifically suited for Indian conditions.

Amara Raja also has an agreement with Jiangsu Highstar Battery Manufacturing Co. For NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) technology.