By: Shilpa Sharma
INDIAN conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd along with billionaire Bill Gates’ investment management firm Paulson & Co and others will invest $144 million (£104m) in US energy storage company Ambri Inc.
The latest announcement comes from Reliance on Tuesday (10), after the Indian major in June unveiled its plans to invest $10 billion (£7.2bn) in renewable energy over the next three years.
The move is seen as part of its drive to become a net carbon zero company by 2035, with plans to build four ‘giga factories’ at Jamnagar in the western Indian state of Gujarat to produce solar cells and modules, energy storage batteries, fuel cells and green hydrogen.
The conglomerate, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd (RNESL), will acquire 42.3 million shares of preferred stock in Ambri for $50m (£36m), the company said in a statement.
The two firms are also in talks to set up a large-scale battery manufacturing facility in India, it said.
Ambri’s energy storage systems “will break through the cost, longevity and safety barriers associated with lithium-ion batteries used in grid-scale stationary storage applications”, Reliance said in the statement.
In a separate statement, Ambri said it would utilise the money to design and build high-volume manufacturing facilities in the US and globally that will supply its long-duration battery systems to meet growing demand from the grid-scale energy storage market.
