Adani group looks to invest $20 billion in renewable energy
- Adani group to invest in generation, transmission, component manufacturing over 10 years
- Managing the climate crisis will require every country to unite, perhaps like never before, and work together, Gautam Adani said
Adani Group will invest $20 billion in clean energy generation, component manufacturing, transmission and distribution over 10 years, chairman Gautam Adani said. The size of the investment rivals fellow billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s $10 billion push into green energy over three years.
“Over 75% of Adani’s capital expenditure until 2025 is in green technologies,” Gautam Adani said, adding that the group is the world’s largest solar power producer if generating, under construction, and contracted projects are included. He was speaking at the JP Morgan India Investor Summit on Tuesday.
Adani’s investment plans come close on the heels of similar green energy initiatives of rival Ambani, who is setting up an integrated, renewables energy ecosystem in Jamnagar, Gujarat. His Reliance Industries Ltd plans to set up four so-called giga factories to make solar modules, hydrogen, fuel cells, and a battery grid to store electricity.
The mega investments in green energy come amid pressure from governments and investors on companies reliant on fossil fuels to cut their carbon footprint to fight climate change.
Adani also recently announced its entry into petrochemicals through Adani Petrochemicals Ltd. The company will set up refineries, petrochemicals complexes, and specialty chemicals units in Gujarat, a direct challenge to Reliance Industries.
Adani Group also plans to triple its renewable power generation capacity over the next four years to 63% of its total portfolio from 21% now. By 2030, the group aims to power all data centres with renewable energy and make its ports net carbon zero by 2025.
“Our renewables portfolio has reached our initial target of 25 gigawatts a full four years ahead of schedule. This puts us well on track to be the world’s largest renewable power generating company by 2030,” Adani said.
Adani has 4,920MW of operational renewable energy generation capacity and another 5,124MW under execution.
The group’s ambition to produce the world’s cheapest green energy mirrors the ambitious vision of Ambani, who on 3 September said India could make green hydrogen the most affordable fuel option by bringing down its cost to $1 per kg within a decade. Green hydrogen, used as fuel in industry and automobiles, has little or no carbon emissions.
Adani added that the group is now India’s largest private sector power producer, the largest private port operator, the largest private airport operator, the largest private consumer gas and electric utility business, the largest private electric transmission company and the largest infrastructure developer in renewables.
“In just the last eight years, we have acquired over 50 assets amounting to about $12 billion,” he said.
On the company’s digital business, Adani said the group’s plans for airport-centred growth include metropolitan developments that span entertainment facilities, e-commerce and logistics capabilities, aviation-dependent industries and smart city developments.
Over the next two decades, Adani said, India will have the biggest and youngest middle class that ever existed and will be among the world’s top four countries in terms of market capitalization. “This is leverage from which we must benefit.” India, he said, will be driven by homegrown companies and those international businesses that are truly committed to being and acting local.
“But, as if the pandemic were not enough, yet another challenge looms, and India will have to play a major balancing role. If the crisis in 2001 was the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and in 2007 the bursting of the housing bubble, and if in 2020 the crisis was the pandemic, we now have to collectively confront and manage the crisis of climate change,” he said.
Managing the climate crisis will require every country to unite, perhaps like never before, and work together.
“Those criticizing the pace of climate reform must remember that the economic and industrial might of the West sits on a carpet of carbon soot several centuries deep. A hundred years ago, today’s climate reformers were burning over 800 million metric tonnes of coal–that is more coal than what India produces today,” he said.
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First Published:22 Sep 2021, 12:26 AM IST
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