A wholly-owned unit of Reliance Industries will buy the UK’s Faradion Ltd, a sodium-ion battery technology firm, for an enterprise value of 100 million pounds ($135 million) as billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate accelerates its push into renewable energy.
Reliance New Energy Solar, which has signed definitive agreements to acquire 100% of Faradion, will also be investing 25 million pounds in the Sheffield and Oxford-based firm to expedite the commercial roll out, according to an exchange filing Friday.
“Faradion’s sodium-ion technology provides significant advantages compared to alternative battery technologies,” Reliance said in the filing, calling it low cost, scalable and sustainable. There is “no dependence” on cobalt, lithium, copper or graphite, it added.
The transaction marks the sixth green deal for the retail-to-refining conglomerate that has committed to invest $10 billion in sustainable energy initiatives over three years.
Ambani, Asia’s richest man, wants to transform Reliance which still gets nearly 60% of its revenue from fossil-fuel related businesses and aims to make it carbon net-zero by 2035.
Reliance shares rose as much as 0.9% on Friday in Mumbai during trading. The stock has advanced about 19% this year.