Reliance Industries aims for 20 GW solar generation capacity by 2025

To cater to the captive needs of round-the-clock power and intermittent energy for Green Hydrogen, Reliance Industries plans on establishing 20 GW of solar energy generation capacity by 2025.

"Once proven at scale, we are prepared to double the investment to scale up our manufacturing ecosystem," Chairman & Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said at Reliance Industries' 45th Annual General Meeting.

At the company's AGM last year, Ambani announced the setting up of the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex in Jamnagar and enabling at least 100 GW of solar energy by 2030.

The company aims to establish four Giga Factories, one each for photovoltaic panels, energy storage, Green Hydrogen, and fuel cell system. This will be part of the company's efforts to establish a fully integrated New Energy manufacturing ecosystem in Jamnagar, for which it has committed an investment of Rs 75,000 crore.

Reliance announced a new Giga Factory for Power Electronics at the AGM on Monday. It is building significant capabilities in designing and manufacturing power electronics and software systems that will integrate with their telecommunications, cloud computing and the IoT platform. The factory will be built via partnerships with leading global players.

With regards to its solar PV manufacturing, Reliance's subsidiary Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd acquired a 100 percent stake in solar cell and panel manufacturer REC Solar Holdings for $771 million in October last year.

REC is also expanding its 1.2 GW annual module production capacity to 1.8 GW in Singapore. Based on REC's technology, Reliance's 10 GW solar PV cell and module factory in Jamnagar will begin production in 2024. The company is targeting to scale up to 20 GW annual capacity in a phased manner by 2026.

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate aims to start production of battery packs by 2023, scale up to a fully integrated 5 GWh annual cell to pack manufacturing facility by 2024 and fully scale up to a 50 GWh annual capacity by 2027.

It is also committed to creating an end-to-end battery ecosystem — from battery materials to cell manufacturing.

To further its battery ambitions, Reliance has:

Acquired all assets of Lithium Werks for Rs 468.2 crore in March

Acquired 100 percent stake in UK-based global battery technology company Faradion for 100 million pounds

Invested $50 million in energy storage company Ambri

Reliance also aims to transition from Grey Hydrogen to Green Hydrogen by 2025 after proven cost and performance targets. As part of its work on bio-energy, it inaugurated phase-I of its Bio-energy Technology (BET) centre at Jamnagar this Independence Day.

With over 2,500 scientists, partnerships with leading global start-ups, the ability to scale rapidly, collaboration with global EPC players, and a modular and replicable business model, Reliance wants the New Energy business to help India become a net exporter of energy and emerge as a credible alternative to China in New Energy manufacturing.

“It is good to realise that Reliance is making a play at each of the three sub-transitions (power sector transition, mobility transition and green hydrogen transition) that constitute the broad energy transition in India," Gagan Sidhu, Director of CEEW Centre for Energy Finance told CNBC-TV18.

Sidhu also said that the three sub-transitions will make a net-zero India as they account for 70 percent of emissions. "We at CEEW had conducted a study last year where we estimated the investment requirement for India to achieve that net-zero target by 2070 and that was something in the order of $10 trillion. So if we average it out over the next 50 years, we are talking about $200 billion each year in investment for these three transitions," he said.

Decarbonising the global economy will require multi-decade investments in green and clean energy to the tune of $5 trillion per year globally

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In advanced discussions to partner with leading electrolyser tech players globally to set up a giga-scale electrolyser manufacturing facility at Jamnagar

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