Context :

RIL arm to buy UK’s Faradion for Rs 1K cr / Financial Express / 01 Jan 2022

Extract :

Reliance New Energy Solar (RNESL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL), on Friday said it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy Faradion, an Oxford, UK-based sodium ion battery manufacturer for an enterprise value of £100 million or Rs 1,000 crore.

RNESL will additionally spend £25 million as growth capital for commercial rollout of batteries in India, the company said in a statement.

The announcement is in line with RIL’s Rs 75,000 crore investment planned in clean energy space to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2035.

The plan entails an investment of Rs 60,000 core in four giga factories which will manufacture and fully integrate all the critical components for the business; and another Rs 15,000 crore in building and developing the value chain, partnerships and future technologies.

RIL plans to use Faradion’s sodium-ion battery technology at its proposed energy storage giga-factory as part of the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex project in Jamnagar, Gujarat.

The sodium-ion technology is expected to provide significant advantages compared with lithium-ion and lead acid batteries as it is not dependent on cobalt, lithium, copper or graphite.

It is claimed to be the sixth most abundant element on the planet.

“The batteries have low cost of ownership and are already comparable to lead-acid with potential for further reductions in costs,” the company said.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, said, “We will work with Faradion management and accelerate its plans to commercialise the technology through building integrated and end-to-end giga scale manufacturing in India.”

Since August this year, through its renewable arm RIL has invested in five global firms to grow its clean energy portfolio.

In August the company announced;

# An investment of $50 million in US-based Ambri Inc

In October ;

# German “ green solar wafers ” technology company NexWafe GmbH;

# A pact with Danish company Stiesdal A/S for hydrogen electrolyser;

# Acquisition of 100% stake in solar panel manufacturer REC Solar Holdings AS

# An acquisition of 40% stake in Sterling & Wilson Power.

My Take :

[ A ] ………… Local Research on Sodium-ion Battery

Congratulations, Shri GopuKumarji…………………………………….. [ 30 Jan 2019 ]

Extract:

Dear Shri GopuKumarji, [gopukumar@cecri.res.in ]

Just came across the following news report in today’s Business Line :

Govt-owned electrochemical lab cracks sodium-ion cell tech

It reads :

===================================================

CECRI…..will be ready to license technology for the mass production of Sodium Ion cells, if things go as planned .

The production could be a big leap to Electric mobility because sodium-ion batteries cost a tenth of the conventional lithium ion batteries

Sodium, available in abundance in sea water, has long been a preferred option, but the metal is also tricky to handle due to its reactive nature.

The difficulty has not deterred scientists at CECRI from trying, who have already developed the technology for making lithium-ion cells and have offered to it to the industry.

Congratulations to your entire team on this “ game changing “ breakthrough – especially considering that ,

# India has no deposits of Lithium and must spend heavily to import it from Bolivia-China etc

# Extracting Sodium from our abundant supply of sea water is not an issue

[ B ] ……………. Generating Green Hydrogen from water

Ray, a drop of golden Sun………………………………….. [ 18 Feb 2019 ]

Extract :

He and his team has come up with a contrivance that marries solar panels to electrolysis equipment so as to produce hydrogen using a Proton Exchange Membrane in water electrolysis

For full report , read :

With a little help from the Sun

Dr Vasudevan may have “ a long way to run “ till we see solar panels mounted on roof-tops of cars, producing hydrogen – and electricity - from “ Water Electrolysis Contrivance “ located under the hood , and driving small electric motors

Without doubt, considering that skies are filled with Sunlight and abundant water on earth contains 11.19 % hydrogen !

Dr Vasudevan adds :

“Water electrolysis by PEM concept is the most suited process for onsite production of hydrogen, because of its simplicity of operation and maintenance, compactness, absence of corrosive liquids and purity of hydrogen

The source of electricity is solar panels. You need 5 kWhr of electricity to produce one cubic metre of hydrogen in an hour, and half a cubic metre of oxygen, at atmospheric pressure. Both gases are of 99.99 per cent purity and the oxygen can be used in hospitals

The device costs around ₹1 lakh, but that is because the anode and cathode are made of iridium and platinum respectively.

Now CECRI is trying out different materials for the electrodes to make it less expensive. The electricity, of course, is free once the cost of the solar panels is paid for. “

Dear Shri Nitin Gadkariji,

If we fail to encourage our brilliant Scientists ( through public recognition and handsome grants for commercializing their innovations ), then we have a bleak future !

I urge you to send a congratulatory email to Dr Subramanyan , at :

Vasudevan65@gmail.com / svasudevan@cecri.res.in

[ C ] Solar Panels 1,000 times powerful than current / Grid Scale

Storage Batteries

1000 TIMES MORE POWERFUL SOLAR PV PANELS …………….. [ 08 Sept 2021 ]

Extract :

E Mail sent to : akash.bhatnagar@physik.uni-halle.de

Dear Akash,

A few days back, I came across a news report re your research on PV Solar Panels which produced 1,000 times more current

I thought ( if quickly commercialized ), that invention could enable every house ( including small huts ) to generate its own / full requirement of power, by mounting such panels on their Roof Tops / Terraces

That could enable the World to shut down ALL fossil-fuel based power-plants and help avoid climate catastrophe through global warming

Without waiting to check-out with you, I sent out following e-mail to all of India’s Cabinet Ministers :

How to reduce Carbon Emission to Net Zero ? …………[ 25 July 2021 ]

YOUR INVENTION IS THE SOLUTION. HERE IS HOW :

Current PV technology will give 5 Kwp ( from 500 sq ft )

Your tech ( being 1,000 times more productive ), will produce 5,000 Kwp !

Or, just 5 sq ft of terrace, can produce 50 Kwp ( enough for most Concrete / Stone buildings, of which, India could have 50 million , as per my estimate )

That means ( at a conservative estimate ),these 50 million buildings can generate 250 GW of Roof-top Solar !

As against India’s target of generating 45 GW of Roof-top Solar by next year ( 2022 ), we have so far managed only 5 GW !

HOW CAN YOU HELP INDIA ?

Ø Through your willingness to transfer your technology to several Indian firms

manufacturing PV Solar Panels

I request that you make such an offer to ,

Shri R K Singh , India’s Minister for Renewable Energy rajkumar.singh19@sansad.nic.in

ANY OTHER ISSUE ?

Ø Yes. Each Rooftop Solar installation must be made stand-alone. No feeding

day-time power generation into local GRID

No Reverse Metering . Total independence

Ø This would require a reasonably-sized STORAGE BATTERY that can store