Shyam Metalics and Energy Limited, a metal producer headquartered in Kolkata, officially announced its entry into the energy storage sector with battery-grade Aluminum foil, a critical component in Lithium-ion cells. The Company gears towards becoming one of the first large-scale domestic contributors to the government’s AatmaNirbhar Bharat initiative in the battery energy storage sector.
Shyam Metalics, a major producer and exporter of Aluminum foil for various industrial applications with an annual production capacity of 20,000 tons will allow India to corner a share for raw materials in the global Lithium-ion cell market, which is expected to reach 6500GWh/year capacity by 2030.
For the production of 1GWh (Gigawatt-hour) of LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) cells, which powers a wide variety of electric vehicles and energy storage systems, 350 tons of high purity and uniform-thickness aluminum foil is required that acts as a positive (cathode) current collector. The demand doubles for Sodium-ion batteries where both positive and negative current collectors are expected to be using aluminum foils.
The customized battery aluminum foil from Shyam Metalics with thickness ranging from 12-micron to 20-micron has been tested and validated by third-party laboratories. The Company also has the necessary state-of-the-art German equipment that can manufacture aluminum foils as thin as 6-micron thickness, which will be suitable for future requirements where the foil thickness is expected to decrease with evolving Lithium-ion cell technologies for an improved value of cell gravimetric energy density (amount of energy contained per unit weight of the cell expressed in terms of Watt-hour/Kilogram).
According to various industry and policy assessments, India needs over 903GWh of energy storage system capacity to decarbonize its mobility and power sectors; and Lithium-ion batteries will have a very big market share in this.
India spent $1.8bn to import 5,486.18 kWh lithium-ion batteries during April-November 2022 period as against the import of 6,167.68 lakh units of lithium-ion batteries for $1.83bn in 2021-22, indicating a growth in imports consequently to rising demand for electric vehicles and green energy solutions.
As India gets ready to set up Lithium-ion cell Giga-factories as part of the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, Shyam Metalics’ foray into raw material space for Lithium-ion cell manufacturing strengthens the indigenization drive in the strategically important energy storage solutions sector and providing the Company a future-relevant business opportunity.
