India could export $500-bn green energy over 20 years: Mukesh Ambani

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday said India’s annual export of green energy would rise to $500 billion in the next 20 years.

“India’s technology and digital exports have risen to $150 billion from less than $10 billion 20 years ago. By 2030, I believe they will exceed half a trillion dollars. Similarly, India’s clean and green energy exports in the next 20 years at the end of 20 years also has the potential of half a trillion dollars of export,” Ambani said in a virtual chat at the Asia Economic Dialogue.

He also said energy transition will determine geopolitical transition in the 21st century.

“When wood was replaced with coal, Europe overtook India and China to emerge the world leader. Similarly, with the emergence of oil, the US and West Asia outgrew others.

When India becomes not only self-sufficient in Green and Clean Energy, but also a large exporter, it will help India emerge as a global power,” he said.

Ambani was speaking at a fireside chat on ‘Green Energy for our Sustainable Future’ with R A Mashelkar, president, Pune International Centre. He said India is likely to become a green energy superpower in the next 20 years in line with what it has achieved in the IT sector in the last 20 years.

“Our young and super-talented entrepreneurs will make India a green energy superpower in the next 20 years, in the same that India became an IT superpower in the last 20 years,” Ambani said in a virtual chat at the Asia Economic Dialogue.

Ambani noted that the new energy businesses in India are “standing on their own two feet, with their own entrepreneurship, and very little support of or basis of any great government subsidies.”

“I foresee at least 20-30 new Indian companies in the energy and tech space which will grow as big as Reliance, if not bigger, in the next 10-20 years,” he said.

“Let me put this in perspective for our audience. It took Reliance about 15 years to become a $1 billion company. 30 years to become a $10 billion company. 35 years to become a $100 billion company. And 38 years to touch $200 billion company,” Ambani said.

Asia’s richest man further added, “I have no doubt that the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs will achieve this in half the time. What this also means is that India’s community of entrepreneurs will become broader and wealth creation will also become more inclusive.”

“Technological progress will make energy affordable on the basis of commercial viability; and it will be technology, and the entrepreneurial spirit, and the new business model that gives values to the customer that will drive the business and not government subsidies. And that’s encouraging about the new energy opportunities that I see,” he said. ANI