Premier Energies and RCT India Form Joint Venture for 12 GWh Battery Storage Manufacturing Facility in Telangana
Premier Energies and RCT India signed a term sheet for a 12 GWh battery storage manufacturing plant in Telangana, with a 6 GWh first phase.
Photo by Robert So on Pexels
Premier Energies Limited, a publicly listed Indian solar manufacturer, and RCT India, the Indian arm of Germany’s RCT Group, signed a binding term sheet on September 10, 2026 to form a joint venture for a 12 GWh battery energy storage system (BESS) manufacturing facility in Telangana, according to a corporate filing Premier Energies made with the BSE. The announcement was made in Hyderabad and marks Premier Energies’ first move from solar manufacturing into battery energy storage manufacturing.
The facility will be developed through Premier Battery Technologies Private Limited, a subsidiary of Premier Energies. The companies plan to build the plant in two phases, with the first phase, at 6 GWh of capacity, to be developed initially; pv magazine India separately reported that this first phase is expected to become operational by June 2027, a date not stated in the companies’ own press release. Premier Energies and RCT India did not disclose an investment amount, an equity split between the two partners, or the size of the completed second phase in the September 10 filing.
What each partner brings
Under the term sheet, Premier Energies will contribute its manufacturing capabilities, built over more than three decades in solar-cell and module production. RCT Group, operating in India as RCT India (and, per the release’s own contact listing, formally registered as RCT Energy India Private Limited), says it brings more than 10 GW of experience setting up BESS-related projects worldwide, along with in-house engineering and operational capability for gigascale battery storage projects in Europe.
Chiranjeev Saluja, Managing Director of Premier Energies, said in the announcement that “energy storage is the need of the hour for the Indian power system” and that the company’s partnership with RCT “gives us access to this rapidly growing market.” Sukumar Reddy Madugula, Managing Director of RCT India, said the joint venture aims to “build world-class energy storage capabilities in India.”
The facility is intended to serve commercial, industrial and utility-scale battery storage demand in both the Indian and international markets, according to the companies.
India’s battery manufacturing gap
The joint venture comes as India’s domestic battery cell manufacturing capacity remains far below the country’s near-term storage needs. Energy-Storage.News, citing Wood Mackenzie research, reported that China’s battery cell production capacity is more than 1,000 times larger than India’s, and that India had only around 2 GWh of operational cell manufacturing capacity against a pipeline of roughly 260 GWh of battery storage demand implied by 2026 tender activity. That gap follows a broader acceleration in Indian storage deployment: battery storage additions in India jumped 84-fold to 8.2 GWh in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to Mercom India data reported by Winss Solutions, and the country separately reached 162.15 GW of installed solar capacity, a 57-fold increase since 2014.
| Detail | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total planned facility capacity | 12 GWh |
| First phase capacity | 6 GWh |
| First phase target operational date (per pv magazine India; not confirmed by companies) | June 2027 |
| Announcement date | September 10, 2026 |
| Developer subsidiary | Premier Battery Technologies Private Limited |
| Location | Telangana, India |
| India’s operational cell manufacturing capacity vs. 2026 tender pipeline (Wood Mackenzie, via Energy-Storage.News) | ~2 GWh vs. ~260 GWh |
About Premier Energies and RCT Group
Premier Energies Limited is a Hyderabad-headquartered, publicly listed company (BSE: 544238, NSE: PREMIERENE) with more than 30 years of experience in solar cell and module manufacturing. The company has expanded rapidly across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in 2026, commissioning a 1.4 GW TOPCon module production line in April, a 400 MW Mono PERC solar cell line at Maheshwaram in January through its subsidiary Premier Energies Photovoltaic, and a 5.6 GW zero-busbar module facility at Seetharampur in July, according to Mercom India. The Telangana BESS joint venture represents the company’s first publicly announced expansion beyond solar manufacturing into battery storage.
RCT Group is a Germany-based energy engineering company that describes itself as bringing more than 10 GW of global experience delivering battery energy storage projects, including gigascale installations in Europe. Its Indian operations, referred to in the announcement as RCT India and registered locally as RCT Energy India Private Limited, are intended to combine that international engineering track record with local delivery capability in the Indian market. The joint venture with Premier Energies is RCT’s first publicly disclosed manufacturing partnership in India.
Sources: BSE Limited corporate filing (Premier Energies Limited); Mercom India; pv magazine India; Energy-Storage.News
Featured image: photo by Robert So on Pexels (free Pexels license).
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I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.
