Reliance, Brookfield Sign MoU To Manufacture Renewable Power Equipment In Australia

Brookfield Asset Management and India's largest private sector enterprise, Reliance Industries (RIL) on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore opportunities to manufacture renewable energy and decarbonization equipment in Australia.

Through the MoUm the duo aims to accelerate and de-risk Australia's energy transition by enabling it to locally produce clean energy equipment such as PV modules, long-duration battery storage and components for wind energy.

On the MoU, 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-reduction targets in 2030."

Brookfield will work with the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-backed company to explore avenues of direct capital investment and development of skills, knowledge and expertise in the renewable energy sector of Australia to facilitate the nation's transition to a net zero future.

Further, as part of the deal, both companies will evaluate the establishment of advanced operations in Australia to make/or assemble equipment used in the construction of renewable energy projects supplying equipment to all players in the market including Origin Energy Markets.

Also, Anant Ambani, Director, of Reliance New Energy Limited, said, "We are confident that Reliance and Brookfield will explore 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."

The MoU with RIL is one of the key initiatives being undertaken by Brookfield to bring global manufacturing technology and expertise to Australia. In March this year, it signed a binding agreement with EIG to acquire Origin Energy, it said in a statement.

Currently, the proposed acquisition is going through the relevant approvals processes.

As part of its proposed acquisition of the Origin Energy Markets division, Brookfield along with its institutional partners and global institutional investors GIC and Temasek have set out a plan to invest between A$20 billion and A$30 billion over the next ten years to accelerate its energy transition, it added.

Notably, the MoU with Reliance intends to support this investment to ensure a consistent and adequate supply of the clean energy equipment required to develop up to 14 GW of new, large-scale generation and storage capacity in Australia. Independent analysis undertaken for Brookfield indicates the establishment of onshore sovereign manufacturing capability for the energy transition has the potential to create approximately 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.

RIL 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 world's largest integrated renewable energy manufacturing facilities in India.

On Tuesday, at the time of writing, RIL shares traded at Rs 2543 apiece, marginally down from the previous closing on BSE. The stock ranged from Rs 2559 to Rs 2537.60 per share in the early deals.