Winds of Change: Issue 41
In this week's penultimate issue, we take a look at Ambani's shopping cart, and understand the coal crisis.
Welcome to Winds of Change, a weekly newsletter that collates my work as I chase the winds that bring us the monsoon and drive our turbines.
Week three of notice period went past faster than I was expecting. Part of it was because I've begun meeting friends colleagues and doing a farewell tour of sorts, but also because time is warped in nobody can convince me otherwise. As of writing this issue (a day late I know, but I had plans on Friday and Saturday!), I have only three days left at ET. Looking forward to them!
Reliance goes shopping
Mukesh Ambani was a busy man this week. His investments in the renewable energy sector meant that Reliance's planned $10 billion investment is coming to fruition right before our eyes.
First up, Mukes bhai bought Norwegian solar module manufacturer REC Solar for $771 million. Reliance will use REC's high efficiency module technology in their planned ‘giga factories’ in Jamnagar, which was also the birthplace for their polluting oil refining business.
Reliance wants to pivot from their traditional fossil-fuelled business of oil refining, petrochems, and construction. Part of this also might be due to global ESG (environmental, social, governance) concerns, where it's become hip for big corporations to worry about their emissions.
Not to stop at that, later that day RIL also announced an investment in a leading but struggling financially EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) company, Sterling and Wilson from Shapoorji and Pallonji group.
Reliance will own 40% of the company, and will get an opportunity to buy the rest.
S&W were IPO'd a couple of years ago, with the promoters saying that the raised money will be used to fulfil its debt obligations.
Narrator: They did not fulfil their debt obligations.
S&W is a good bet apart from their bucketloads of debt. They are a top player in the EPC business not only in India, but across the globe.
These two moves already give Reliance an immediate stronghold in the renewables business (provided the REC technology can be successfully replicated at the scale they are looking at). They also want to get into Hydrogen in a big way. Add in their investments in the battery storage company, and Reliance has everything cornered except for becoming an independent power producer (IPP), which constructs and runs their own solar or win power plants.
If I were a betting man, I wouldn't bet against Asia's richest person.
I hosted my last podcast for The Morning Brief this week!
It was on the coal crisis currently ongoing in the country. I spoke to two former officials who have been in charge of the decision making of the power sector at the central level: Partha Bhattacharyya, former CMD of Coal India Limited, and Sanjiv Sahai, former secretary at the Ministry of Power. We also had my colleague and ace power sector reporter Sarita Singh to talk about the latest developments.
Bottom line: the crisis was caused by an uptick in demand, and supply could not keep up with it because of the delayed monsoon (where have I read about that hmmmm) causing flooding in the coal mines, preventing further extraction of coal.
When I hosted my first episode of the podcast, I was underprepared and quite nervous. This was my fourth episode as a host, and I admittedly, I have done well in this one — explaining a technical, complicated issue well is something I'm quite proud of!
I have one more episode as part of the podcast team, as an editor for the episode on Tuesday. You will read all about it soon!
That's all for this week's issue. Thank you for reading! This issue was written by me, Shashwat Mohanty, and the artwork was produced by Devika Menon for Winds of Change.
I hope you learnt something new. Please feel free to reply to me about any errors or typos you spotted, any clarifications, and most importantly, any feedback. Till next Sunday!
Will miss reading your newsletter and learning on a new area every Sunday morning!