AHMEDABAD: On Thursday, when Reliance Industries Ltd’s chairman addressed shareholders virtually for the 44th Annual General Meeting (AGM) from the company’s manufacturing facility near Jamnagar, it was not without reason that he chose the location.
While the chairman moved from Mumbai to the Jamnagar site during the second wave of Covid-19 to oversee the supply of medical-grade liquid oxygen for patients, the place has always been at the centre of the company’s big-ticket investment plans.
After setting up the world’s largest refining complex, building a large petrochemical complex and giving shape to its oil to chemicals strategy, Jamnagar was once again in focus on Thursday as the RIL chairman unveiled plans for launching a new initiative for renewable energy business.
Ambani said the company has started work on developing the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex on 5,000 acres in Jamnagar.
This will include solar manufacturing facility, battery factory, fuel cell-making factory and an electrolyzer unit.
It will be amongst the largest such integrated renewable energy manufacturing facilities in the world, Ambani said while adding, “Jamnagar was the cradle of our old business strategy.
Jamnagar will also be the cradle of our new business strategy.” Over the next three years, RIL plans to invest over Rs 60,000 crore in renewable energy business in the next three years which includes setting up four giga factories near Jamnagar.
Ambani said his oil-to-telecom conglomerate will invest another Rs 15,000 crore to provide infrastructure and utilities to manufacturing ancillary materials and equipment needed to support the four Giga factories.
The company will also build a facility for the production of solar energy where RIL will build an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory.
Another factory will be for the storage battery while the third facility will be for production of green hydrogen that can be used as a fuel in automobiles.
The fourth will be a fuel cell factory for converting hydrogen into motive and stationary power, according to Ambani.
For FY 2021 RIL’s consolidated total revenues were Rs 5,39,238 crore.
Around 60% of the total revenues for this period came from O2C (oil to chemicals) segment, a strategy adapted by the company two years ago for Jamnagar, said sources in the know of the matter.
The company’ Jamnagar complex will provide infrastructure and utilities to manufacture ancillary material and equipment needed to support these Giga factories so that all critical materials are available in time.
RIL will invest an additional Rs 15,000 crore in value chain, partnerships and future technologies, including upstream and downstream industries.
“Thus, our overall initial investment from our own internal resources in the New Energy business will be Rs 75,000 crore in 3 years,” said Ambani.
The company had last year set a target of becoming a net-zero carbon company by 2035, a shorter time frame compared to the 2050 cutoff self-imposed by many of its global peers, including BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
In lines with Prime Minister Narendra Modi ambitious target to achieve 450 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, RIL said it will establish and enable at least 100GW of solar energy by 2030.
“With these new initiatives, Reliance will put Gujarat and India on the world solar and hydrogen map,” he said.
“All our products will proudly proclaim: Made in India, by India, for India and for the world!”