Reliance AGM | Energy business will be net carbon zero by 2035, says Mukesh Ambani

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has said the firm’s oil-to-chemical business was well on its way to achieving net carbon zero by 2035 through the use of renewables and bioenergy for a sustainable and green business.

“We are well on our way to building the New Energy ecosystem of manufacturing Solar, Wind, Batteries, Hydrogen, and Bio-energy platforms,” the chairman of the conglomerate said in his address to shareholders at the company’s 46th annual general meeting (AGM).

This, he said, will enable Reliance to speed up the development of renewable generation assets to deliver round-the-clock electricity for captive requirements as well as to meet the growing needs of Indian consumers.

“As the cost of renewables will be significantly lower compared to fossil fuel-based energy, this will result in reduced energy costs and improved profitability for the O2C business,” he assured.

RIL Chairman said the firm will also pursue wind power generation for which it has made progress in developing a manufacturing ecosystem critical to achieving cost-efficient wind power generation at giga scale.

He pointed out that one of the significant cost drivers in the manufacturing of wind blades is carbon fibre. The firm’s foray into manufacturing carbon fibre at large scale provides a unique advantage to further integrate and reduce cost of wind turbines.

“In addition, we will be partnering with the world’s leading technology players in wind equipment manufacturing to deliver most cost-efficient solutions,” he said.

"We will further leverage our engineering and construction capabilities, along with our giga-scale manufacturing ecosystem, to accelerate and enable installation of at least 100 GW of renewable energy generation by 2030," he said.

Relecting on green energy business, Ambani said, after setting up two demo units for Compressed Biogas (CBG) at Jamnagar, RIL has commissioned the first commercial scale CBG plant at Barabanki in UP in a record time of just 10 months.

"We will rapidly scale this up to 25 CBG plants across India. Our target is to establish 100 such CBG plants in the next 5 years, consuming 5.5 million tonnes of agro-residue and organic waste, thereby mitigating nearly 2 million tonnes of carbon emissions, and producing 2.5 million tonnes of organic manure annually. This would result in reduction of about 0.7 MMTPA of imported LNG," he said.