India's Adani Group to invest $20 billion in renewables in 10 years

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Adani Group will invest $20 billion in renewable energy over the next 10 years and will aim to make its ports business a net-zero carbon emitter by 2025, Chairman Gautam Adani said on Tuesday.

He told a JPMorgan India investor summit the money would be invested across the group's renewable energy generation, component manufacturing, transmission and distribution businesses.

Adani's announcement comes months after Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani's announcement of investing $10 billion in green energy in the next three years, a move that could ignite bidding wars for solar plants and other renewable energy facilties.

India's two richest men are vying to be at the forefront of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambition to ramp up green energy capacity in the world's second-most populous country more than four-fold to 450 gigawatts by 2030.

"This also opens up several new pathways for us including setting us up to be one of the largest green hydrogen producers in the world," Adani said.

The group will triple its renewable power generation capacity to 63% of its total portfolio from 21% currently, Adani said, adding that over 75% of the company's planned capital expenditure until 2025 will be in green technologies.

"We will be the first Indian data centre company that will power all its data centres with renewable energy by 2030," Adani said.

Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of the Adani Group, is the country's biggest coal trader, and the group has faced criticism from climate activists for its push to operate the Carmichael mine in Australia, one of the world's biggest greenfield coal projects in recent years.

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Alison Williams)