Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) will scale up investments in the green energy initiative that it recently announced to play a leading role in the world’s transition to clean energy.
“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. This new growth engine holds great promise to outshine all our existing growth engines in just 5-7 years,” Ambani, Reliance’s chairman, said in the annual report for 2021-22.
The Indian conglomerate has committed to a Net Carbon Zero emission goal by 2035 and its New Energy proposition is key to achieving this. The company said it is actively investing and partnering to take this forward, and building a scalable and enabling energy ecosystem. “India and Reliance will aim to play a leading role in the world’s transition to clean energy,” Ambani said.
Mukesh Ambani chairs and runs Reliance Industries, which has interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecom and retail. Almost 60% of Reliance’s revenue comes from oil-refining and petrochemicals, though, the conglomerate has been reducing its dependence on oil-refining by diversifying into retail, telecommunications and technology.
Ambani is pivoting Reliance into green energy. The company will be investing $80 billion over the next 10-15 years on renewable energy and building a new complex next to its refinery.
“Green Energy is a rapidly evolving vast global industry with a lot of technological innovation under way. To guide on this path, we established the Reliance New Energy Council with some of the globally renowned thought leaders in the field. To kickstart the initiative, last year Reliance announced a $10 billion capex commitment over three years,” Ambani added in the annual report.
Simultaneously, RIL began 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.
Ambani and another Indian billionaire, Gautam Adani have announced plans to invest more than $140 billion in green projects. India, the world’s third-biggest polluter, is relying on the two billionaires as it chases the pledge to be net carbon zero by 2070.
Source: livemint.com
