Piramal Enterprise Ltd is set to make its second investment in the renewable energy sector this year with an investment of Rs.800 crore in solar power producer ACME Solar.
The investment in Delhi-based ACME is being done by Piramal Enterprise Structured Investment Group (SIG), which provides structured mezzanine funding to companies in various sectors, especially in infrastructure.
Other investments by Piramal’s SIG division include Rs.615.5 crore in two cement firms and buying non-convertible debentures (NCDs) of Sanghi Industries Ltd, the flagship company of the Ravi Sanghi Group, worth Rs.265.50 crore.
The funding from Piramal will help ACME complete solar power projects that are under development across India.
According to the company’s website, the total capacity of ACME’s portfolio stood at 1,519MW, which includes 490MW in Telangana, 310MW in Andhra Pradesh, 104MW in Punjab, 100MW in Rajasthan and other projects in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
ACME aims to commission 960MW of projects by March 2017 and increase its portfolio to 7.5GW by 2019.
Piramal’s plans to invest in ACME come on the heels of investments worth almost $1.55 billion in the Indian renewable energy sector in 2015, according to data from VCCEdge, the financial research platform of the VCCircle Network.
The investor interest is being driven by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aggressive push for renewable power to fight climate change, setting an ambitious target of increasing India’s clean energy capacity more than fivefold to 175GW by 2022. Of this, around 100GW is to come from solar power.
The funding will also help support the energy company at a time when its foreign partners are looking at exiting their joint venture with ACME.
By Baishakhi Dutta
