Ambani's Green Energy Push: Reliance Industries, Bill Gates And Others Invest $144 Million In US Battery Storage Company

India's oil-to-telecom-to-retail conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) announced today that it has invested USD 144 million in Ambri Inc, an energy storage company based in Massachusetts, USA.

The investment was made through Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd (RNESL), a wholly owned subsidiary of RIL, along with strategic investors Paulson & Co. Inc. and Bill Gates, and a few other investors.

The investment will help the group commercialise and grow its long-duration energy storage systems business globally. RNESL will invest USD 50 million to acquire 42.3 million shares of preferred stock in Ambri.

Based on patented technology and designed to last between 4-24 hours, Ambri’s long-duration energy storage systems will break through the cost, longevity and safety barriers associated with lithium-ion batteries used in grid-scale stationary storage applications.

“They will enable a crucial energy storage solution capable of supporting the increasing amounts of renewable energy being integrated into electric power grids. RNESL and Ambri are also in discussions for an exclusive collaboration to set up a large- scale battery manufacturing facility in India, which could add scale and further bring down costs for Reliance’s green energy initiative,” said the statement.

Last month, in a virtual address to shareholders at the company's 43rd AGM, the group chairman Mukesh Ambani said RIL had a 15-year vision to become one of the world's leading new energy and new materials companies.

RIL is also working on a plan to enter lithium-ion battery production. India has set up an ambitious vision of building 50 GWh of battery manufacturing capacity by setting up gigafactories.

Addressing shareholders in June this year, Ambani said the company plans to build a gigafactory in Jamnagar for the storage of intermittent energy, as part of the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex project.

“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,” Ambani had announced.

RIL plans to build four giga factories to manufacture and fully integrate all the critical components of the new energy ecosystem including a fuel-cell factory for converting hydrogen into motive and stationary power, an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory to produce solar energy, an advanced energy storage battery factory to store intermittent energy and an electrolyser factory for production of green hydrogen.

Ambri can cater to projects that require energy storage systems from 10 MWh to over 2 GWh. The company manufactures calcium and antimony electrode-based cells and containerised systems which it says 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 are particularly suited for 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.

Also Read: Reliance AGM 2021: Why Mukesh Ambani Should Launch An EV Company