en.Wedoany.com Reported - A subsidiary of Indian renewable energy equipment and component manufacturer Waaree Energies has commenced production at a battery energy storage system (BESS) enclosure factory.
Waaree Energies announced in a press release and a disclosure filing to the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) on July 16 that the facility has been "commissioned." According to JMK Research, the company was the largest shipper of photovoltaic modules in India in the first quarter of 2026. The factory, operated by subsidiary Waaree Energy Storage Solutions, will produce BESS containers with an annual capacity of 5.15GWh. The announcement did not specify whether the plant has already ramped up to this capacity.
The company stated that the capacity has been expanded from the originally planned 3.5GWh, achieved through "production throughput bottleneck elimination" and improvements in battery cell energy density. Waaree noted that the factory is equipped with automated assembly lines, advanced testing and quality assurance (QA) systems, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and Industry 4.0 (i.e., smart and digital) production processes, complemented by intelligent material handling.
Regarding the factory's location, Waaree did not specify in the announcement, but the company had previously announced plans to build a total of 20GWh of BESS-related manufacturing capacity in Andhra Pradesh, including battery cell and module production. Its parent company is also simultaneously advancing vertical integration in the photovoltaic business by investing to increase solar cell capacity to strengthen its module market position. In January, Waaree Energy Storage Solutions raised INR 10 billion (approximately USD 110.9 million) for its BESS manufacturing plans. The company stated that achieving the full 20GWh capacity would require a total investment of INR 100 billion, but did not disclose a breakdown of the component production capacity plan at that time. According to yesterday's release, Waaree said it will achieve operational capacity of 5.15GWh for battery pack manufacturing and 3.5GWh for lithium-ion battery cell production within the current fiscal year.
The completion of this new BESS container factory joins a wave of new plants in India since the first production line of the Tata Power-Gotion High-Tech joint venture came online in late 2023. Subsequently, Good Enough Energy announced the construction of a BESS enclosure factory with an initial capacity of 7GWh, to be expanded to 20GWh annually. In May 2025, electric vehicle battery pack and BESS manufacturer Cygni Energy launched the first phase of a 4.8GWh factory. However, progress has been slower in the more upstream and complex cell manufacturing sector. Earlier this year, India had approximately 60GWh of battery pack manufacturing capacity for electric vehicles and stationary storage, but only about 1GWh of cell capacity.
According to a guest blog by two experts from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), to meet the projected battery demand of 272GWh by fiscal year 2030 (FY2030), India could face an annual battery import bill exceeding USD 23 billion. The central government's Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) gigafactories provides capital expenditure support but has so far been largely unsuccessful. Of the 50GWh cell manufacturing target supported by PLI for 2025, only Ola Electric has brought 1.4GWh of capacity online. IEEFA analysts Charith Konda and Dhruv Garg wrote in a guest blog in May that this is partly due to the scheme's eligibility conditions, including high localization requirements for material inputs and a minimum bid size of 5GWh. The two experts noted that instead, a "parallel ecosystem" of non-PLI battery manufacturing efforts has emerged, citing Waaree's 20GWh roadmap as an example, along with efforts from other players such as Tata, Amara Raja, and Adani. However, the authors stated that even this pipeline of approximately 76GWh is primarily initial battery pack assembly, meaning India will still largely rely on cell imports in the short term.
