Indian-born British businessman Sanjeev Gupta may soon hold the honour of building the world's most powerful lithium-ion battery. The honour currently belongs to Elon Musk’s Tesla.
Gupta, says Techradar, has plans to build a 120 megawatt/140 megawatt-hour battery, beating out the 100 megawatt/129 megawatt-hour battery by Tesla in South Australia. The billionaire is planning to build the battery at Port Augusta in South Australia.
The need for a powerful battery arose after Gupta bought a steelworks in Whyalla, South Australia, last year. He intends to power it with a 200-megawatt solar farm, which will be constructed by Gupta’s GFG Alliance’s clean energy company – Simec Zen Energy. The project is expected to create about 100 construction jobs.
The founder of Liberty House Group has secured a loan of $7.8 million from the South Australian government through its Renewable Technology Fund.
Recently, Gupta was appointed by UK's Prince Charles as an official ambassador for the Industrial Cadets programme, which aims to nurture manufacturing skills. The programme currently involves more than 15,000 youngsters across the UK.
"Gupta is doing so much to apply real imagination, innovative thinking and sustainable rejuvenation to our nation's heavy industries and I'm thrilled that he, through his GFG Alliance, has so enthusiastically become involved with Industrial Cadets as well," the 68-year-old Prince of Wales, was quoted as saying by PTI.
Reacting to the honour, Gupta said: "Coming from a family of industrialists, I had the opportunity while growing up to spend time in steel works and engineering plants. That left a lasting impression on me and really inspired me to pursue an active career in industry. I see Industrial Cadets fulfilling the same function and am very excited about the impact it is facing."
The Industrial Cadets programme was set up by the Prince of Wales almost seven years ago after he realised that the manufacturing and engineering sectors were struggling to recruit young people.
Lakshmi Mittal