Mukesh Ambani says India can rival China in green tech

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani said India can become a “credible alternative” to China for green energy production as he outlined the details of a $10bn investment in renewables that his company announced last year.

The chair of Reliance Industries, India’s biggest listed company, said developing this part of the business would help the country become a net exporter of green energy and a world leader in clean energy manufacturing.

Ambani made the comments at the company’s annual meeting on Monday. It is the first time the second-generation tycoon, known for bringing cheap mobile data to India, has measured his vaulting green energy ambitions against India’s bigger regional economic rival, China, which is a top exporter of cheap renewable energy technology, such as photovoltaic solar panels.

“China’s capacity is huge,” said Vibhuti Garg, India lead at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Ambani is “not saying we’re going to beat China”, she added, but aiming for a “large scale, which was missing in any other country other than China”.

Supply chain problems during the coronavirus pandemic have driven businesses that relied on China’s manufacturing capacity to seek other options in a “China plus one” strategy from which India hopes to benefit.

Reliance’s profitability is still driven by its fossil fuel-intensive oil refining business, the world’s biggest. But Ambani has been rapidly diversifying the conglomerate in recent years, investing billions into the company’s telecoms and digital subsidiary, Reliance Jio, and becoming India’s largest retailer.

Renewable energy is his latest bet, and last year he unveiled plans to build four giant factories in Gujarat, for production of photovoltaic panels, energy storage, green hydrogen and fuel cell systems. On Monday, Ambani announced a fifth facility: a power electronics plant, to make the equipment used to link up new energy systems.

Ambani said the company’s solar panel factory would also start production in 2024, and that its energy storage plant would be making battery packs by next year. He pledged to transition from making hydrogen derived from natural gas to “green hydrogen” by 2025.

Ambani and Gautam Adani, a coal-to-airports tycoon, are emerging as the biggest players in India’s green energy race after Prime Minister Narendra Modi set ambitious energy transition targets at last year’s COP26 climate summit.

Reliance made a slew of other announcements, including the rollout of Jio’s 5G services to big cities by the Diwali festival in October and a 5G smartphone tie-up with Google. It also announced the launch of a fast-moving consumer goods company this year, putting it in competition with giants such as Hindustan Unilever.

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