What Reliance’s move to acquire a majority stake in a solar software firm means

Founded in 2018, SenseHawk is a developer of software based management tools for the solar energy generation industry. It offers solutions ranging from planning to production by helping companies streamline processes and use automation. SenseHawk also offers a digital platform to manage the end-to-end solar asset lifecycle.

The company has more than 140 customers in 15 countries with assets totalling more than 100 GW. Its turnover for FY 2022 was $2,326,369, while it was $ 1,165,926 for FY 2021 and in FY 2020 it was $ 1,292,063. Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said that the acquisition will help the conglomerate in driving down costs, enhancing productivity, and improving on-time performance to deliver low levelised cost of electricity (LCoE) for solar projects globally.

“We are on a mission to improve the solar energy ecosystem, acquiring 50% of the market by 2025 and with RIL as our partner, we will accelerate our execution toward that goal,” said Rahul Sankhe, president and co-founder of SenseHawk.

How is Reliance placed in the new energy sector?

Last year, Reliance announced an investment of Rs 75,000 crore to be deployed towards its new energy business over the next three years.

Before SenseHawk, the conglomerate had made a number of acquisitions to boost its new energy play. In February this year, it completed a 40% acquisition of Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s Sterling & Wilson Renewable Energy Ltd (SWREL). SWREL has the expertise in executing 11-plus gigawatts of solar turnkey projects globally.

In December 2021, Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries took over UK-based Faradion, a battery company, for $135 million.

In October 2021, it acquired Norway-based REC Solar for solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing. Reliance’s PV cell manufacturing facility in Gujarat’s Jamnagar will be based on REC’s technology. The facility will commence operations from 2024.

Last month, during its 45th annual general meeting, Ambani had said that the conglomerate will start production of battery packs by 2023 and scale up to a fully integrated 5 GWh annual cell-to-pack manufacturing facility by 2024.