The renewable energy space turns out to be the hotbed of investments in India as top conglomerates--Reliance Industries, Adani, Tata, and JSW - vie for dominance. The four conglomerates will make an aggregate investment of nearly ₹4 lakh crore in 5-10 years in the segment. The business houses are at various stages of discussions to borrow massively for their greenfield solar and wind projects, acquisitions, and building manufacturing facilities. In addition, they look for strategic investments to meet their funding requirements, say banking sources.
In a bid to become the largest renewable power generating company in the world by 2030, the Adani Group looks to invest over ₹1.5 lakh crore in the renewable energy space over the next decade. It will be in addition to its plan to invest $50 billion in green hydrogen manufacturing, along with the French joint venture partner Total.
N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Group, said at the annual general meeting of Tata Power that they will invest ₹75,000 crore in the next five years to create renewable capacities. Tata Power already floated a new company, Tata Power Renewable Energy Ltd, for building the portfolio and it received an investment commitment of ₹4,000 crore from the BlackRock Real Assets-led consortium, which includes Mubadala Investment Company also.
Chandrasekaran said Tata Power aims to have an electricity generation capacity of 30 gigawatts (GW) at the same time with more than half coming from clean energy sources. Tata Power at present has a generation capacity of 13.5 GW with 34% contributed by renewable energy sources. It added a renewable energy capacity of 707 MW in FY22. The power producer has planned a ₹14,000 crore consolidated capex in this financial year with ₹10,000 crore in renewables.
Mukesh Ambani plans to invest ₹75,000 crore by 2024 to build end-to-end solar power generation facilities. He wants to build four 'Giga' factories in Jamnagar to make solar photovoltaic cells, green hydrogen, batteries, and fuel cells at an investment of ₹60,000 crore. These manufacturing units will power his dreams to build 100GW of solar energy generation capacity.
Reliance Industries, through its subsidiary Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd, will invest an additional ₹15,000 crore in the value chain, partnerships, and future technologies, including upstream and downstream industries. Saudi Aramco, which called off the ₹1 lakh crore investment in Reliance Oil to Chemicals (O2C) last year, has been exploring investment options in Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd.
Sajjan Jindal’s JSW Energy Ltd has laid out a ₹75,000 crore plan for its renewable campaign. The company will add about 15.4 gigawatts of solar, wind, and hydropower capacities by March 2030, according to its 2022 annual report. The power producer aims to become carbon neutral by 2050.
In addition, Jindal’s flagship steel business, JSW Steel will invest ₹10,000 crore to increase the use of renewable energy to replace thermal power and other green initiatives. The steelmaker has contracted for 1 gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy, of which 225 MW has become operational in April 2022.
JSW group is also in discussions with private equity (PE) funds, including Apollo Global Management, to acquire renewable power producer Mytrah Energy (India) (MEIPL), which has 1.8 GW wind and solar capacity.
