India’s most valuable company, Reliance Industries Ltd plans to commission its first solar giga-factory in this fiscal year.
Launch Of The First Solar Giga Factory
With this launch, it pivots a green pathway to achieve net zero carbon emissions from operations by 2035.
The firm said it is targeting to commission the first train of 20 GW solar PV (photovoltaic) manufacturing by the end of 2024-25 fiscal (April 2024 to March 2025).
Further, they are planning to scale up to 20 GW in a phased manner over 2026 as in its largest annual report,
In this solar giga factory, they will manufacture PV modules, cells, wafers and ingots, polysilicon, and glass at a single location.
Basically, these modules convert sunlight into electricity.
The company is targeting industrializing sodium-ion cell production at the MW level in 2025 with the first 50 MWh a year lithium battery cells pilot in 2026.
Earlier in 2021, Reliance had announced plans to invest USD 10 billion over three years to develop a new fuels business based on 100 GW of renewable power capacity by 2030.
For this, the company is planning to set up four giga factories for manufacturing renewables equipment, battery storage, fuel cells and hydrogen at Jamnagar in Gujarat.
Becoming the Largest Renewable Energy (RE) Developer
Reliance said, “We have made significant progress in establishing factories that will be part of our Integrated Solar PV Manufacturing,” in the annual report.
Adding, “New Energy will be commissioning its first train of Module and Cell Manufacturing in FY25.”
In this regard, the solar panels manufactured in Jamnagar have obtained BIS certification.
The company said, “Parallelly, work on renewable energy development has commenced and Reliance has been allotted land in Gujarat.”
Adding, “We aim to become the largest renewable energy (RE) developer in India.”
This financial year may also see industrialized sodium ion cell production at a MW level.
The PV factory is to be scaled to 20GW next year that too in a phased manner.
This is going to be a battery giga factory starting with a 50 MWh a year lithium battery cells pilot set up.
Further the company plans to establish a cell-to-pack manufacturing facility of 50 GWh in FY27 and will set up 100 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.
According to them, the 100GW target will propel the company into the front rank of renewables ambitions globally.
Hence, joining the likes of Enel, Iberdrola and oil players TotalEnergies and BP in the scale of capacity additions envisaged.
Fossil fuels have historically fed India’s power requirements, said Reliance.
Adding, “Structural inefficiencies combined with rising costs of fossil fuel has resulted in expensive power for commercial and residential customers – average tariff of Rs 10 per kWh (unit).”
So, it won’t be feasible for India to keep relying on fossil fuels for its growth.
Further adding, the use of fossil fuels-based energy increases dependence on imports and results in drain of foreign exchange.
It appears that “Stable and round-the-clock cost-efficient green power is the need of the hour. India needs to solve this problem to maintain its growth trajectory and reach USD 32 trillion GDP by 2047.”
