Amara Raja Batteries Ltd., one of India’s largest manufacturer of lead-acid batteries believes that the emergence of lithium as an alternative energy storage technology opens up new and exciting growth opportunities. The Indian battery manufacturer announced its foray into lithium cell and battery pack, electric vehicle chargers, Energy Storage Systems, Advanced Home Energy Solutions and related products and services.

“Over the years, we have built an active distribution network, customer trust and relationship with clear emphasis on maximizing value within lead-acid technology. The company is now well poised to build on these strengths and create multiple new growth engines in the New Energy space,” said Jayadev Galla, vice-chairman of the company.

Amara Raja supplies automotive batteries under the original equipment relationships to Ashok Leyland, Ford India, Honda, Hyundai, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, and Tata Motors.

India has already announced production-linked incentive scheme of 2.5 billion U.S. dollars to manufacture lithium-ion cells or batteries and has set a target to attract investments worth 6.1 billion U.S. dollars.

The Asia’s third largest economy intends to install manufacturing capacity of 50-gigawatt hour (GWh) of advanced chemistry cells or 5 GWh capacity of niche Advanced Chemistry Cells (ACCs), which are essentially lithium-ion cells.