India-based Reliance Industries and Brookfield Asset Management have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Tuesday,to explore opportunities to manufacture renewable energy and decarbonization equipment in Australia.
The MoU is focused on enabling Australia to locally produce clean energy equipment such as photovoltaic modules that contain semiconducting materials which convert sunlight into electrical energy, long duration battery storage and components for wind energy.
The understanding with Reliance is said to be one of the key initiatives undertaken by Brookfield to bring global manufacturing technology and expertise to Australia. Brookfield along with its institutional partners and global institutional investors, GIC and Temasek are set to invest between A$20 billion and A$30 billion to accelerate its energy transition over the next decade.
The company said that the MoU intends to support the investment to ensure consistent and adequate supply of clean energy equipment required to develop up to 14 gigawatts of new, large-scale generation and storage capacity in Australia.
Reliance added that the independent analysis indicated the energy transition to have a potential of creating about 18,000 direct and indirect jobs, many in regions most impacted by the transition such as the Hunter Valley in New South Wales and the La Trobe Valley in Victoria. Reliance has strong expertise in solar panel technology and long duration battery storage technology. It is currently in the process of setting up one of the largest integrated renewable energy manufacturing facilities in India.
Luke Edwards, Brookfield Renewable Head of Australia, said, “We want to help kickstart a new era in local manufacturing that will benefit domestic renewables developers, including Origin Energy Markets, and many communities around Australia. We are establishing these types of global partnerships in manufacturing now to allow us to get started as quickly as possible given the ever-reducing timeline for Australia to reach its first emissions-reductions targets in 2030.”
Through this partnership, Reliance and Brookfield are looking at exploring avenues in green energy in Australia, accelerating the nation’s transition to a Net Zero future and providing a fillip to the global green energy movement.
