RIL forays into energy-storage business through stake buy in US company

Based on patented tech, designed to last between 4-24 hrs, Ambri's long- duration energy storage systems will break through the cost, longevity & safety barriers associated with lithium-ion batteries

Reliance New Energy Solar (RNESL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL), kicked off the group’s green energy foray with a $50-million investment in energy storage company Ambri Inc.
 
This investment is part of a $144-million financing round, which saw participation from Paulson & Co and Bill Gates, among others. RNESL will acquire 42.3 million shares of preferred stock in Ambri.
 
Reliance and Ambri, which was incubated in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, are also in discussion for an exclusive collaboration to set up a large-scale battery manufacturing facility, and distribution and sales centres in India, said a person close to the development. 
 
Ambri was founded in 2010 by Donald Sadoway, a professor at MIT, and David Bradwell. The company is designing a 1 MWh long-duration DC battery-system, based on calcium-antimony liquid metal cell technology for four hours to one day daily energy storage applications. Post-commercialisation of the new technology, RNESL would be able to offer the new battery systems in high usage applications such as grid connected renewable projects and data centres.
 
Its existing investors also include French energy major TOTAL SE, Khosla Ventures, KLP Enterprises, and GVB. Khosla Ventures is the investment firm of Vinod Khosla, an Indian-American billionaire businessman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems. The latest joint investment will help Ambri commercialise and grow its long-duration energy storage systems business globally, RIL said.
 

It is believed that the new technology would have low capital expenditure on the system and will turn out to be more economical than lithium ion batteries. It can have more than 20-year battery life with low degradation.  Once commercialization of the new technology is established, a tie-up with RIL would ensure scale since India could be a big market. This would help in further bringing down costs for RIL’s new energy plans. 
 
India currently does not have large-scale advanced battery manufacturing technology. Major players like Luminous assemble battery packs that have cells, including those based on Li-ion. RIL would, however, pose a challenge to Nexcharge, a brand of Exide Leclanche Energy, a joint venture between India’s largest lead-acid storage battery manufacturer Exide Industries and Leclanché SA, which began operations in 2018. Leclanché is a leading Li-on battery manufacturer based in Switzerland.
 
Nexcharge is also looking to cater to a diverse segment of industry and utility markets with end-to-end solutions based on Li-ion batteries of different chemistry. It already has India’s largest factory equipped with fully automated assembly lines of Li-ion battery packs, modules (pouch/prismatic/cylindrical), and cell testing labs at Prantij in Sabarkantha district, Gujarat.
 
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,” RIL said in the statement.
 
Addressing shareholders in June, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani had announced plans to build a giga factory in Jamnagar for the storage of intermittent energy, as part of the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex project.