- The August 15 launch of Mahashakti will mark Ola’s formal entry into a market that is still in its early stages in India but is expected to grow rapidly as the country pursues its target of 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030.
Ola Electric Mobility Ltd and Axis Energy signed a MoU to explore deploying 20 GWh of battery storage by 2032. The partnership marks Ola’s first large-scale validation of Mahashakti, the forthcoming energy storage platform. It will launch on August 15 and serve commercial, industrial, and utility-scale applications.
The agreement’s scale reveals India’s storage requirements in depth. Ola is prepared to bet heavily on a homegrown, integrated approach to meeting them.
The Central Electricity Authority projects that the country will require more than 400 GWh of battery storage by 2032. It will underpin its accelerating energy transition. By 2032, the country will need over 400 GWh of battery storage. Ola and Axis Energy’s 20 GWh target would represent a substantial portion of that need. It would also position utility-scale BESS as a meaningful growth avenue for the electric mobility company.
For Ola, the MoU is an early and emphatic demonstration of the demand Mahashakti can capture from the outset. Axis Energy Ventures’ Chairman and Managing Director, Ravi Kumar Reddy Kataru, explained the tie-up’s logic. He stated, “As our renewable energy portfolio expands, battery energy storage is quintessential to enabling reliable, round-the-clock clean power.” The quote highlights storage as central to steady power supply.
He described the agreement as an important step. The agreement aims to evaluate indigenous storage solutions that support the next phase of the company’s renewable growth.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola Electric’s Chairman and Managing Director, framed the deal. It was a proof point for storage ambitions. This showed the company’s broader strategy.
India will require energy storage at scale. Our vertically integrated cell-to-system platform enables a stronger proposition across safety, performance, and total cost of ownership, he said.
“Axis Energy is our first large-scale partner and an important early validation of Mahashakti’s potential. Interest from potential partners in the industry is growing. The MoU reinforces our momentum toward long-term partnerships.
Axis Energy’s growing pipeline
Axis Energy is already one of India’s most ambitious developers of storage-backed renewable projects. The company has secured grid approvals for over 3,750 MW of projects across Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan and is advancing a robust pipeline of roughly 3,500 MW more.
Its portfolio spans Firm and Dispatchable Renewable Energy (FDRE), hybrid, and non-solar configurations — all of which demand large-scale battery storage to improve renewable integration, strengthen grid reliability, and deliver firm, round-the-clock clean power.
The partnership with Ola positions Axis Energy to source those storage systems domestically, potentially reducing lead times and insulating its project economics from the supply-chain volatility that has periodically roiled the global battery market.
Mahashakti: Built on vertical integration
Ola’s approach with Mahashakti is built on full vertical integration, spanning cell technology, large-scale manufacturing, and system engineering — all designed and produced in India.
The company argues that this architecture gives customers greater control over safety and performance, stronger supply-chain security, and a meaningfully lower total cost of ownership over the system’s operating life.
The platform targets a broad range of applications: renewable-energy integration, industrial power management, grid infrastructure support, and data-center backup.
That breadth reflects the wide-ranging demands of India’s energy transition, where storage is increasingly recognized not as an optional add-on but as essential infrastructure for managing the intermittency of solar and wind generation.
The August 15 launch of Mahashakti will mark Ola’s formal entry into a market that is still in its early stages in India but is expected to grow rapidly as the country pursues its target of 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030.
With its first marquee partner now in place and what Aggarwal describes as strong interest from across the industry, Ola’s pivot from electric mobility into large-scale energy storage appears to be gathering momentum well ahead of the platform’s official debut.