Reliance Industries (RIL) is planning to get into solar power generation and manufacturing, hydrogen production, e-fuels and energy storage under its New Energy and New Materials division. It will also set up a platform for renewable energy project finance to source long-term global capital for investment in these sectors. The three-pronged plan will cumulatively involve an investment of Rs 75,000 crore over three years. Under the plan, RIL will set up Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex, spanning 5,000 acre, in Jamnagar, Gujarat, at Rs 60,000 crore while another Rs 15,000 crore will be invested in value chains, partnerships and future technologies, including upstream and downstream industries. RIL will create a capacity of producing solar power of 100 GW in 10 years, as per reports.
The move will bring RIL into direct competition with the Adani Group. Adani Solar has 3.5 GW of annual solar photovoltaic production capacity while Adani Green Energy has a portfolio of 25 GW of commissioned and under construction projects. RIL will set up four giga factories for integrated solar photovoltaic modules, advanced energy storage, electrolyser factory for green hydrogen, and fuel cell factory for converting hydrogen into motive and stationary power. For solar manufacturing, RIL will have integrated manufacturing starting from raw silica and poly silicon to ingot, wafers to finished products cells and modules. This will be a major addition to India’s solar manufacturing plans though the company did not reveal the capacity it will be putting up. RIL will focus in a major way on rooftop solar and de-centralised solar installations in villages. The second part of the plan entails creating a value chain for the giga factories. It will be part of the Jamnagar complex of the company, add reports.