Reliance’s Ambani Singles Out Green Initiatives As Game Changer In Message To Shareholders

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director at Reliance Industries, in his annual message to shareholders, has highlighted progress on the  group’s  green energy initiatives as a key area to watch for the future. The group, which had announced a commitment to invest $10 billion into it’s new energy initiatives in 2021, has made significant progress since then, with a slew of partnerships, acquisitions, and start of work on the gigafactories across the renewable supply chain.

What stands out is Ambani’s to an analogy between wireless broadband rates and green energy costs, where he has made it repeatedly clear that they will seek to bring the same low cost, high volume metrics to the market for green energy too.

“FY 2021-22 marked the beginning of Reliance’s Green Transformation, at a scale which will make India the world’s leading green energy producer. We know that affordability is the most critical factor in the adoption of any new technology and the scale of societal benefit it can create. Reliance has embarked on this journey with a vision to repeat the feat it achieved in wireless broadband. In the field of Green Energy – Reliance will develop end-to-end Green Energy solutions, which will make clean and abundant energy available to everyone at the most affordable price. 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. “

Highlighting how lower costs could not be achieved by operating in just  one segment of the green energy value chain, Ambani spoke about how the group is targeting the full value chain from solar power first, to green hydrogen generation.

Ambani highlighted the many partnerships and acquisitions the firm has made since it announced its ambitious net zero target of 2035 and the push into green energy. From  Ambri in the US (stake buy), to Faradion in the UK (fully acquired) and The Netherlands-based Lithium Werks in the energy storage space. Germany’s NexWafe, which is a pioneer in next-gen technology to produce monocrystalline silicon wafers needed in making solar panels also found a mention. The acquisition of promoters’ stake in REC Solar – a global technology leader in solar panel manufacturing, besides the 40% stake in EPC major Sterling & Wilson Renewable Energy  were also  highlighted as key drivers.

In the Hydrogen ecosystem, Reliance has joined hands with the US-based Chart Industries to set up India H2 Alliance to commercialise hydrogen technology and develop a supply chain in collaboration with other Indian stakeholders. It has also entered into an agreement with Denmark’s Stiesdal A/S for its innovative next-gen electrolyser technology, which has the potential to reduce dramatically the cost of producing hydrogen from pure water.

Work on the four Giga-factories at Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex to set up world-scale production capacity for solar panels, energy storage systems, electrolysers and fuel cells spread over 5,000 acres in Jamnagar has also started.

Ambani spoke about creating an ecosystem of thousands of small and medium scale project consultants and installers pan-India to set up Green Energy generation projects in every corner of the country.