explained | What are Gigafactories, and RIL’s big plan to build four of them

At the recently concluded 44th RIL AGM, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani announced that the company will make a big push for new and renewable sources of energy. As part of his move, Ambani said that Reliance Industries There are now plans to build four “Gigafactories”, which will aim to “manufacture and integrate all the important components of the new energy ecosystem”. RIL’s CMD pledged an amount of Rs 60,000 crore to invest in setting up four gigafactories – one for solar photovoltaic cells, one for advanced energy storage batteries, one for electrolysers and one for fuel cells. Interestingly, RIL’s plan to set up four gigafactories in India could not only generate jobs and position India as one of the biggest players in the global clean energy sector, but from a sheer technological standpoint. , can set a record in setting up four gigafactories.

What are Gigafactories?

Although gigafactories is not an old phrase associated with mainstream industries, it has become a mainstay of modern and new generation of clean energy companies. The term was first mentioned by the head of Mercurial Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, sometime in 2013 – along with the massive battery production facility that Tesla, his electric car company, was building. While there is no precise dictionary definition of what a gigafactory is, there are two common understandings of the term – one says that a gigafactory signifies a factory capable of producing thousands of gigawatts of energy end to end. End battery manufacturing process. Another interpretation of the term is that a gigafactory generally refers to a large factory – with ‘giga’ indicating the enormous scale of the enterprise.

Any definition to be considered, a gigafactory is, by all means, a factory of epic proportions. This includes an end-to-end process of manufacturing commercially usable energy cells and batteries from end-to-end – from sourcing raw materials, to having all the necessary equipment and materials in one place, to finished cells. And to churn out the battery. A gigafactory essentially brings together a number of companies and entities that source components, highly specialized equipment, and a number of business processes that are tied together to make this kind of factory work.

This is one that requires a huge factory in terms of size, as it consists of many different elements at once. However, this makes the process of battery manufacturing more economical, as it does not require the enormous costs that may be incurred in moving volatile energy processes from one location to another. Gigafactories also deploy state-of-the-art technologies, and create thousands of jobs to perform the entire process.

This is also in line with Ambani’s statement, who said, “We will invest an additional Rs 15,000 crore in value chain, partnership and future technologies including upstream and downstream industries. Thus, our total investment in the new energy business is 75,000 over 3 years.” crore will be Rs.

How Big Are Four Gigafactories?

While the Gigafactories are huge contrails in their own right, having four of them is phenomenal. For context, the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada, United States that was nearly 30 percent finished in February 2020, spans 43 acres of land, with floor space of 121 acres. This equates to more than 93 full-size football stadiums taken together. A fully complete and full-sized Gigafactory can measure much more than this.

While there is no specific scale, the four full-sized and fully operational Gigafactories will be nothing short of an engineering marvel. For context, the current record holder for the world’s largest building by floor space is the New Century Global Center in Chengdu, China, with a floor area of ​​over 433 acres. A fully completed four gigafactories would be well above that, according to current knowledge.

This is what drives enthusiasm about Reliance Industries’ plan to build four gigafactories to contribute to India’s quest to move to clean energy resources, and it will be interesting to see what the future holds.

Disclaimer:Network18 and TV18 – the companies that operate news18.com – are controlled by the Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.

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