Reliance New Energy Ltd, a division of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire assets of Lithium Werks BV for $61 million, as it develops technology and material resources for its new energy foray.
The assets include the patent portfolio of Lithium Werks, a manufacturing facility in China, key business contracts, and the hiring of existing employees. It has a 200 MWh annual production capacity including coating, cell, and custom module manufacturing capability
Lithium Werks is a leading provider of cobalt-free and high-performance Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries.
Its batteries are used in industrial, medical, marine, energy storage, commercial transportation, and other highly demanding applications.
Reliance recently acquired Faradion Limited, which has a patented sodium-ion battery technology. The company has a wide-reaching and extensive intellectual property portfolio on several aspects of sodium-ion technology. This strengthens Reliance's technology portfolio and provides it access to one of the world's leading portfolios of LFP patents and a management team.
Reliance aims to establish an end-to-end battery ecosystem that will allow it to deliver not only manufacturing at large scale certain key supply chain materials, such as cathode, anode, electrolyte, but also a cell manufacturing facility including leading IOT/AI capabilities giving Reliance the flexibility to produce batteries and battery module systems consisting of different chemistries for various applications across energy storage and mobility.
"LFP is fast gaining as one of the leading cell chemistries due to its cobalt and nickel free batteries, low cost, and longer life compared to NMC and other chemistries. Lithium Werks is one of the leading LFP cell manufacturing companies globally and has a vast patent portfolio and a management team that brings tremendous experience of innovation across the LFP value chain. We are looking forward to working with the Lithium Werks team and are excited about the pace at which we are progressing towards establishing an end-to-end battery manufacturing and supply ecosystem for India markets," stated Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited.
"Along with Faradion, Lithium Werks will enable us to accelerate our vision of establishing India at the core of developments in global battery chemistries and help us provide a secure, safe, and high-performance supply chain to the large and growing Indian EV and Energy Storage markets," he further added.