The Adani Group will invest over $100 billion in green energy transformation

The Adani Group will invest over $100 billion (about Rs 8,340 crore) in energy transformation projects and manufacturing capabilities to produce all major components needed to generate green energy, its CEO said.

In addition to building solar parks to produce electricity from sunlight and wind farms that do the same from wind, the conglomerate is also building large facilities to produce electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen, wind turbines and solar panels.

Green hydrogen, created by separating hydrogen from water using electrolyzers powered by clean energy, is seen as a potential panacea for decarbonizing industry and transport.

Speaking at the ‘Infrastructure – A Catalyst for India’s Future’ event at Crisil, Adani Group CEO Gautam Adani said energy transformation and digital infrastructure are trillion-dollar opportunities that will transform India both locally and globally.

“Over the next decade, we will invest over $100 billion in the energy transition space and continue to develop our integrated renewable energy value chain, which already includes the production of all major components required to produce green energy,” he said.

The “cook-to-ports” group wants to produce “the world’s cheapest green electron”, which will become a raw material for several sectors that must meet sustainable development requirements.

“To make this happen, we are already building the world’s largest single-site renewable energy park in Khavda, Kutch district (in Gujarat). This one location alone will generate 30 GW of power, taking all our renewable energy to 50 GW by 2030.” – he said.

Adani said the energy transition space will fundamentally change the global energy landscape forever. “The global transition market was valued at approximately $3 trillion in 2023 and is expected to grow to nearly $6 trillion by 2030, doubling thereafter every 10 years until 2050.”

“As many of you know, in the case of India, our country aims to install 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. This ambitious goal will require annual investments of more than $150 billion. India’s green energy transition is expected to generate millions of new jobs in sectors such as solar and wind power, energy storage, hydrogen and its derivatives, electric vehicle charging stations and grid infrastructure development, he said.

When it comes to digital infrastructure, he said, data is truly the new oil, and at the heart of everything is the data center – the critical infrastructure needed to support all forms of computing needs, especially AI workloads for machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, computer vision and deep learning.

It all depends on the ability to process data at unprecedented speed and scale, the precise capabilities that data centers provide. But this will require huge amounts of energy, making data centers the most energy-consuming industry in the world, he said.

“This makes the energy transition even more complex and drives up electricity prices, thereby increasing already high prices due to the combined impact of climate change and demand growth,” Adani said.

The billionaire said the infrastructure required for the energy transition and the infrastructure required for the digital transformation are now inseparable as the technology sector becomes the largest consumer of valuable green electrons.

The Adani group’s digital footprint will include industrial clouds across all its businesses it manufactures and then brings to market, cybersecurity operational technology offerings, super apps to leverage its B2C business across a wide range of consumer-facing businesses, artificial intelligence labs that will leverage India’s rapidly emerging expertise to deliver artificial intelligence services around the world, and data centers that will form the backbone of the energy-intensive digital revolution.

“In fact, by 2030, the world is projected to need between 100 and 150 GW of additional green energy just for AI data centers. We already have India’s largest data center order book and are currently in discussions for additional gigawatts of AI-powered green data centers that we can deliver at exceptional scale,” he said.