Reliance building largest battery plant in India

Housed at the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Manufacturing Complex, the new Reliance manufacturing complex will be what the company says is the world’s largest, most modern, modular, and integrated ecosystem at a single location.

Reliance has already begun construction of an integrated advanced chemical battery manufacturing facility with a 30 GWh annual capacity at Jamnagar. Production is set to commence by the second half of 2025. The giga-factory is designed for modular expansion and can be expanded to 20 GW at minimal cost and shortest time possible.

Mukesh D Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd, said this week that the modular design of the giga-factory will allow rapid expansion of the annual capacity in multiples of 30 GWh, responding to both domestic and global demand, while meeting diverse requirements from stationary to mobility applications.

“We will start by assembling Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) for utility-scale applications and pack solutions for residential, commercial, industrial, telecom, and mobility markets. Progressively, over the next few quarters, we will integrate “backward” to cell manufacturing and eventually to battery chemicals production. This will create the world’s only fully integrated battery giga-factory, driving synergies across the value chain,” said Ambani.

“Our giga-factory will be SMART from the start and fully Digital Native. We will have full track and trace capability from battery materials to cells to systems/packs installed in the field. These production lines will be future-proof and adaptable to different chemistries and changing cell form factors.”

According to Manufacturing Today, Reliance is also advancing sodium-ion battery technology, which is ideal for stationary storage and two-wheeler batteries, among other advantages, on account of the abundance of sodium. Reliance plans to industrialise sodium-ion cell production at a megawatt level by 2025.

On the lithium-ion battery front, essential for higher-performance automotive batteries, Reliance can draw upon expertise and experience with their US subsidiary Lithium Werks, which is well versed in LFP (lithium-iron-phosphate) batteries, and its UK subsidiary Faradion.

Reliance has also begun work on establishing a fully automated, multi-GW electrolyser manufacturing facility, which will be ready by 2026. This giga-factory will support various technologies such as alkaline, PEM, and AEM. The facility is built using Industry 4.0 standards and will be expandable in a modular fashion to meet the market demand.

In parallel, Reliance is building capabilities for futuristic electrolysis-based technologies to tackle challenges in energy efficiency and capital cost reduction for its next-gen electrolysers.

Mukesh D Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, said this week Reliance will commence the production of its solar photovoltaic (PV) modules by the end of this year.