RIL AGM 2023: Mukesh Ambani highlights how Reliance has become India's largest bioenergy producer

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani Monday elucidated on how they have become “India’s largest bioenergy producer based on indigenously developed technology while solving the stubble burning pollution problem.”

Addressing the 46th RIL annual general meeting (AGM) in Mumbai, Mukesh Ambani said, “We took to solving the problem of severe pollution faced by many of our Indian cities during winters, caused by stubble burning, and accelerated our plans to deploy bioenergy projects. India produces nearly 230 million tonnes of non-cattle feed biomass, most of it contributing to air pollution. Within a short span of one year, we have become India’s largest bio-energy producer based on our indigenously developed technology.”

“After setting up two demo units for Compressed Biogas (CBG) at Jamnagar, we have commissioned the first commercial scale CBG plant at Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh in a record time of just 10 months. We will rapidly scale this up to 25 CBG plants across India. Our target is to establish 100 CBG plants in the next 5 years, consuming 5.5 million tonnes of agro-residue and organic waste, thereby mitigating nearly 2 million tonnes of carbon emissions, and producing 2.5 million tonnes of organic manure annually. This would result in reduction of about 0.7 MMTPA of imported LNG,” Mukesh Ambani said.

He further said Reliance is progressing well to deploy its committed capital of Rs 75,000 crore to build its new energy manufacturing ecosystem.

“This will enable us to accelerate giga-scale production for round-the-clock power and for large-scale green hydrogen production for green chemicals manufacturing, as well as for green mobility. We will continue to invest in technology and talent. We will collaborate with global technology and product companies, including start-ups focused on commercialising emerging and disruptive technologies. We are rapidly adding to our rich talent pool of several thousand scientists, engineers and innovators from countries around the world. Our transition to Net Carbon Zero and building a sustainable chemicals business will result in increased revenue, reduced energy costs, improved profitability, and providing a near perennial growth platform in India and overseas for our materials and energy business,” he said.

Mukesh Ambani further said that Reliance is uniquely positioned to offer a practical solution to the serious ‘energy trilemma’ India has been facing.

“The ‘energy trilemma’ demands action to overcome three challenges: One, affordability of energy: How to ensure that every citizen and every economic activity in India has access to adequate, most affordable energy. Two, sustainability of energy: How India can rapidly transition from fossil fuel-based energy to clean and green energy. Three, security of energy: How the expanding needs of a fast-growing Indian economy can be de-risked from geopolitical rivalries, conflicts and potential supply disruptions. Reliance’s New Energy and New Materials business squarely addresses this ‘trilemma’,” he said.

“We have a roadmap towards achieving our targeted cost of electrolysers, and in turn, green hydrogen. In collaboration with our technology partners, we are firmly on our way to successfully demonstrate this first at MW scale. We will leverage our engineering capabilities, large-scale manufacturing and localisation to optimise this at giga scale. In parallel, we will set up a fully-integrated, automated, giga-scale electrolyser manufacturing facility. This will enable us to establish large-scale green hydrogen production at Jamnagar, gradually transition our captive requirements, and simultaneously integrate with green ammonia and green methanol production for domestic and international markets,” Mukesh Ambani said.

“Our company is uniquely positioned to be a global leader in green chemicals manufacturing by leveraging its O2C infrastructure, talent, and execution capabilities…Reliance will have indigenous technology ownership and manufacturing capabilities. In fact, Reliance has a golden chance to enable India to transform itself from a net energy importer to a net energy exporter,” he said.

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