Gurugram-based battery innovation company Offgrid Energy Labs has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Archean Chemical Industries. This round also saw participation from existing investor, Ankur Capital.

Offgrid will utilize the funds to establish a 10 MWh demonstration manufacturing facility in the UK, enhance its research and development pipeline for next-generation stationary energy storage solutions, and commercialize its patented ZincGel batteries through certification, testing, and finalizing the blueprint for a giga-factory.

The company stated that ZincGel’s technology is based on three innovation vectors: alternative chemistry, materials and design, and manufacturing. The battery’s technology is derived from 25 intellectual property (IP) families and over 50 IP assets created using commonly available, non-toxic materials, while leveraging proven zinc-bromide chemistry.

Offgrid claimed that ZincGel’s proprietary electrolyte enables customized battery configurations for diverse stationary applications.

Rishi Srivastava, Co-Founder at Offgrid Energy Labs, said India alone will need over 236 GWh of battery energy storage systems by 2032. With ZincGel, the company said it can develop scalable solutions at globally competitive costs.

Offgrid has also recently raised funding from a seed round led by Shell Ventures.

Last month, the Ministry of Power issued amendments to the operational guidelines of the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) program for battery energy storage system (BESS) projects under the  ₹94 billion (~$1.1 billion) program to provide funding of up to 40% to develop 4,000 MWh of BESS capacity.

In June this year, the Ministry announced the second tranche of VGF to support BESS development. Under this tranche, a VGF of ₹1.8 million (~$21,043)/MWh will be provided to support the development of 30 GWh of BESS capacity. Of the proposed 30 GWh, 25 GWh of storage capacity has been allocated across 15 states. NTPC will develop the remaining 5 GWh.

The government approved the first tranche of the VGF program in September 2023, which included a budgetary support of ₹37.6 billion (~$439.58 million).