Reliance to acquire British Sodium-ion battery company Faradion for £100 million

Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd (“RNESL”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd has signed definitive agreements to acquire 100% shareholding in Faradion Limited for an enterprise value of £100 million. In addition, RNESL will also invest £25 million as growth capital to accelerate commercial roll out.

Reliance will use Faradion’s technology at its proposed fully integrated energy storage giga-factory as part of the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex project at Jamnagar in Gujarat.

Based out of Sheffield and Oxford in the UK, Faradion is a battery technology company that claims a competitively superior, strategic, wide-reaching and extensive IP portfolio covering several aspects of sodium-ion technology. According to a company statement, Faradion’s sodium-ion technology provides significant advantages compared to lithium-ion technology, including: greater sustainability, a patented zero-volt safe transport and storage capability and immense opportunity for scalability. The total cost of ownership is already comparable to lead-acid, and performance at par with lithium-ion phosphate (LFP), both with runway for further improvements.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries, said, “It (Faradion’s technology) utilizes sodium, which will secure India’s energy storage requirements for its large renewable energy and fast-growing EV charging market. We will work with Faradion management and accelerate its plans to commercialise the technology through building integrated and end-to-end giga scale manufacturing in India.”

James Quinn, CEO of Faradion, said: “Reliance is the perfect partner for supporting Faradion’s growth in the rapidly expanding Indian market and to jointly speed up the transformation of the global energy market. Becoming part of the Reliance group validates the incredible work our team has done in advancing sodium-ion technology.”

Dr Chris Wright, Chairman and Co-Founder of Faradion, said: “Dr Jerry Barker, Ashwin Kumaraswamy and I founded Faradion in 2010 to develop sodium-ion technology and bring it to market, with funds from Mercia Asset Management. This deal with Reliance firmly establishes Faradion’s sodium-ion batteries as an integral part of the global value chain for cheaper, cleaner, more sustainable energy for decades to come.”

Also Read: Can Sodium-ion batteries propel the future of clean transportation?