India's oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries presented on Wednesday a removable battery for energy storage that could be used for electric vehicles and for powering appliances via an inverter, company officials told Reuters.
Reliance Industries, chaired by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, has ambitious plans to grow in the 'New Energy' business with battery storage, renewable power generation, solar module manufacturing, fuel cells, and electrolyzers.
The executives at Reliance Industries who spoke to Reuters didn't announce details such as when the company could start selling such removable multi-purpose batteries.
Reliance Industries will look to partner with EV makers although it doesn't plan to go into EV manufacturing, according to a presentation at the event at which the removable battery was unveiled.
In recent years, the group's subsidiary Reliance New Energy Ltd (RNEL) has acquired sodium-ion battery technology company Faradion Ltd. for an enterprise value of $121 million (£ 100 million) and Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries provider Lithium Werks for $61 million. Lithium Werks provides cobalt-free and high-performance LFP batteries.
Battery storage and technology is one of the areas of focus for Reliance's new energy business. Other recent investments include a stake in an energy storage company, the acquisition of solar cells and panels and polysilicon manufacturing firm REC Solar Holdings AS, and investments in collaboration for developing hydrogen electrolyzers.
Reliance Industries said in early 2022 it would invest as much as $76 billion in green energy projects in India over the next 15 years. Reliance had already announced the year prior a commitment to invest more than $10 billion in three years in a new business unit that would build solar modules, battery storage, electrolyzer, and fuel cell factories.
"We have a 15-year vision to build Reliance as one of the world's leading New Energy and New Materials company," Ambani said at the company's 2020 annual general meeting.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More