Reliance Industries Ltd, a conglomerate controlled by Asia’s richest businessman Mukesh Ambani, expects the company’s green energy business to ‘outshine’ other businesses over the next 5 to 7 years, according to Ambani’s statement in the company’s 2021-22 annual report.
“Over the next 12 months, our investments across the Green Energy value chain will gradually start going live, scaling up over the next couple of years,” Ambani said.
“This new growth engine holds great promise to outshine all our existing growth engines in just 5-7 years,” he added.
Ambani is building upon his vision to steer Reliance Industries toward renewable energy and said that he his company will develop end-to-end green energy solutions to provide affordable clean energy.
“Just as India has the world’s most affordable wireless broadband today, we will have the world’s most affordable Green Energy within this decade,” Ambani said.
In January 2022, the company had signed an agreement with government of Gujarat to invest about $80 billion in green projects including building factories for solar modules, hydrogen electrolyzers, fuel cells and storage batteries.
Reliance partnerships
To achieve its green energy ambition, Reliance has entered into a series of agreements with local and international companies over the past several months.
Reliance has partnered with companies like US-based start-up Ambri, UK-based Faradion and Germany’s NexWafe, which specializes in technology to produce monocrystalline silicon wafers needed in making solar panels.
Reliance also acquired REC Solar – a global technology leader in solar panel manufacturing with a 40% stake in Sterling & Wilson Renewable Energy, which is one of the world’s leading EPC turnkey contractors in large scale solar projects.
In the report, Reliance outlined the development of four Giga-factories that the company is developing on a 5,000-acres complex to set up production capacity for solar panels, energy storage systems and electrolysers.
Additionally, Reliance plans on investing in an ecosystem of thousands of small and medium scale project consultants and installers across India to set up Green Energy generation projects in every corner of the country. The company will also undertake large gigawatt scale turnkey green energy projects for power generating companies.
“Reliance played a leading role in caring for India and Indians in the last couple of years of the pandemic. We now aim to care for the planet as we embark on our most exciting transformation – the green transformation,” Ambani said.