One of the largest business conglomerates in India that's rapidly expanding its presence in the solar space, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is exploring the US market and has made the move to acquire the majority stake in SenseHawk, a California based solar digitalization platform (SDP).
An early-stage developer of software-based management tools SenseHawk's platform offers end-to-end management of solar asset lifecycles for process optimization, automation, and asset information management. It supports customers with pre-construction evaluation, offers construction management and also provides a single interface for ease of operations and maintenance (O&M).
The US company has so far supplied its software technology for over 600 sites and assets of more than 100 GW since it was founded in 2018.
"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 on our execution toward that goal," said President and Co-Founder of SenseHawk, Rahul Sankhe.
The $32 million investment from RIL brings it a 79.4% stake in SenseHawk and will enable the US company secure funding for future growth, commercial rollout of products and research and development (R&D). The transaction is subject to regulatory and customary closing conditions and expected to be completed before 2022-end.
RIL said this investment will be synergistic and create unique solutions with higher value to customers along with its other investments in New Energy.
"In collaboration with SenseHawk, we will drive down costs, enhance productivity and improve on-time performance to deliver the lowest LCOE for solar projects globally and make solar energy the go-to source of power in lockstep with our vision for solar energy," added Chairman and MD RIL, Mukesh D. Ambani. "It is a very exciting technology platform and I am confident that, with RIL's support, SenseHawk will grow multifold."
A fairly new entrant in the solar PV industry, deep-pocketed RIL is now practically entering all aspects of the value chain as it targets 100 GW solar energy by 2030. The company has plans to set up Giga fabs for vertically integrated solar PV, energy storage, green hydrogen, fuel cell systems and now power electronics in India. It also aims to install 20 GW solar energy capacity by 2025 to be entirely used for captive needs of round-the-clock (RTC) power and intermittent energy for green hydrogen (see Reliance Announces Power Electronics Gigafab).