RIL to invest Rs 75,000 crore to build new energy manufacturing ecosystem

Reliance Industries is on track to deploy Rs 75,000 crore to build a new energy manufacturing ecosystem, Chairman Mukesh Ambani said. The investment will enable the company to accelerate giga-scale production for round-the-clock power and large-scale green hydrogen production for green chemical manufacturing and green mobility.

Reliance Industries plans to build a battery gigafactory in India by 2026, as the oil-to-telecom conglomerate seeks to expand its renewable energy business and support the country's electric vehicle push.

During the company's 46th Annual General Meeting, Reliance Industries officials stated that the development will aid in the production of battery chemicals, cells, and packs, eventually leading to containerised energy storage solutions. It will also contain a battery recycling factory to provide an integrated environment. The company will start with LFP Chemistry, which has been scale-tested for safety, stability, and life. LFP, which stands for lithium iron phosphate, is a type of lithium-ion battery chemistry.

"Simultaneously, we are focused on fast-track commercialisation of our sodium ion battery technology. We will build on our technology leadership position by industrialising sodium ion cell production at the megawatt level by 2025 and rapidly scaling up to gigascale thereafter," Ambani added.

Furthermore, the integration of energy storage with wind and solar power generation is crucial to supplying grid-connected, round-the-clock electricity, and the  company claims to be on its way to demonstrating this integration at the megawatt scale in Jamnagar in the next few quarters. This will be followed by grid-scale battery deployment, according to the corporation. 

Reliance Industries stated that it remains confident of achieving its targeted cost of electrolysers and, thus, green hydrogen, and that they, along with their partners, are on track to successfully demonstrate this first at MW scale. This will be achieved thanks to the company's engineering expertise, large-scale manufacturing, and localisation, which will allow it to optimise this at the gigascale.

"In parallel, we will set up a fully-integrated, automated, giga-scale electrolyser manufacturing facility. This will enable us to establish large-scale green hydrogen production at Jamnagar, gradually transition our captive requirements, and simultaneously integrate with green ammonia and green methanol production for domestic and international markets," Ambani continued. 

Concerning bio-energy, an emerging fuel source for the country's vehicle sector, Reliance claims to be the country's largest bio-energy producer and has already set up two compressed biogas (CBG) demo units at Jamillionagar. The business has commissioned its first commercial-scale CBG facility in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, and now wants to develop 100 similar CBG plants over the next five years, consuming 5.5 million metric tonnes of agro-residue and organic waste, offsetting 2 MT of carbon emissions, and creating 2.5 MT of organic manure annually. It will help reduce about 0.7 MMTPA.