Pace Digitek Limited’s material subsidiary Lineage Power Private Limited (LPPL) has established a Pace-Lineage Research Center in Pune, Maharashtra, the company announced Tuesday.
The dedicated R&D facility is meant to strengthen the company’s research, engineering and product development capabilities in advanced battery technologies, including Advanced Chemistry Cells (ACC) and energy storage solutions.
IISER Pune tie-up
As part of the initiative, Lineage Power has entered into a research collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune.
The partnership will focus on advanced battery technologies and battery materials. The company said the move is aligned with the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India goals, aimed at strengthening domestic capabilities in energy storage.
The research programme will cover Advanced Chemistry Cells, spanning both lithium-ion (Li-ion) and sodium-ion (Na-ion) battery materials, with the goal of improving battery capacity and cycling stability.
Focus areas of research
Planned work includes optimisation of material coatings, tuning of material microstructure and porosity, and design of new electrolytes. It will also include detailed material characterisation, electrochemical evaluation, and optimisation of cell parameters.
The centre will additionally evaluate and validate raw materials from domestic suppliers. The company said this is intended to support indigenous technology development and strengthen the local supply chain.
Market backdrop
India’s energy storage sector is in the middle of a sharp expansion. The country added 4.6 GWh of battery energy storage capacity in January-March 2026 alone, a 941% jump from the 442.7 MWh added in the preceding quarter, taking cumulative installed capacity to 5.9 GWh as of March 2026.
Annual installations are projected to rise nearly ten-fold to around 5 GWh in 2026 from roughly 507 MWh in 2025, as the sector shifts from tendering to execution. The broader project pipeline has swelled to about 92 GWh, the largest ever recorded for India, with 69 new tenders totalling 102 GWh floated in the past year alone — a 35% rise over 2024.
On value, the India BESS market is estimated at USD 2.05 billion in 2026 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 33.2% to reach USD 8.59 billion by 2031.
Government projections see national storage capacity requirements rising from about 82 GWh in 2026-27 to 411.4 GWh by 2031-32. Separately, a 50 GWh Advanced Chemistry Cell PLI scheme and new gigafactories are pushing domestic battery manufacturing and supply-chain localisation.
Facility reflects a long-term strategy to expand research and engineering capabilities in ACC tech and advanced battery systems
The company expects this to help accelerate technology development, build in-house expertise, and support innovation across the energy storage value chain.
The centre, it added, will complement its existing manufacturing, engineering and project execution capabilities.
Venugopal Rao Maddisetty, Chairman & Managing Director, Pace Digitek Limited, said: “Technology and innovation will play a defining role in the future of energy storage. The establishment of our dedicated R&D Center marks an important step in strengthening our research and engineering capabilities. Our collaboration with IISER Pune brings together scientific research and industry expertise to advance battery materials and support indigenous technology development.”
Pace Digitek operates across two segments — Energy and Telecom & ICT — spanning manufacturing, EPC and O&M. Through Lineage Power, it manufactures and supplies Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), telecom power systems, and related energy infrastructure products.
