RNESL and Ambri are also in discussions for an exclusive collaboration to set up a largescale battery manufacturing facility in India
Reliance Industries Ltd is steadily expanding its base in the clean energy market, an example of which is its recent announcement to buy a stake in US-based energy storage company Ambri Inc.
RIL’s newly-established arm, Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd (RNESL), along with strategic investors Paulson & Co. Inc. and Bill Gates and a few other investors, has announced an investment of $144 million in the Massachusetts-based company.
RNESL will invest $50 million to acquire 42.3 million shares of preferred stock in Ambri. The investment will help the company commercialise and grow its long-duration energy storage systems business globally.
Battery Storage in India
RNESL and Ambri are also in discussions for an exclusive collaboration to set up a largescale battery manufacturing facility in India, which could add scale and further bring down costs for Reliance’s green energy initiative.
“We are exploring new and advanced electro-chemical technologies that can be used for such large-scale grid batteries to store the energy that we will create. We will collaborate with global leaders in battery technology to achieve the highest reliability for round-the-clock power availability through a combination of generation, storage, and grid connectivity,” RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani had announced while unvieling the new clean energy arm in June.
Ambri can cater to projects that require energy storage systems from 10 Megawatt Hour to over 2 Gigawatt Hour.
The company will manufacture calcium and antimony electrode-based cells and containerised systems that are more economical than lithium-ion batteries, capable of operating safely in any climatic condition without requiring supplemental air conditioning and meant to last for over 20 years with minimal degradation.
Ambri systems also support high-usage applications, such as shifting energy from daytime solar generation to evening and morning peak load times.
The company is securing customers for large-scale projects with commercial operation in 2023 and beyond.
