TPG’s Greenko to build Indian wind farms with GE

Greenko and GE Energy Financial Services will contribute $65 million and $50 million, respectively, to the construction of projects with a capacity of 500 megawatts. This is sufficient to power 875,000 Indian homes, according to GE. The first 65 MW project, in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra state, will use turbines built locally by GE and be completed by December.

Greenko wants to ramp up its Indian wind capacity to 1 gigawatt by 2015 and is constructing farms in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan states. It estimates that the country has harnessed less than 25% of its wind-energy potential to date.

India's wind capacity stood at about 15,000 MW of wind capacity as of August 31 and is already the world's third-biggest market for new wind park installations after China and the US. The country wants to boost capacity by 2,400 MW by March 31, 2012.

Private equity firms have been drawn to the sector, with Goldman Sachs' private equity arm recently agreeing to pay INR10 billion ($202 million) for majority stake in Indian start-up ReNew Wind Power, marking one of the largest investments in India's clean energy sector. ReNew wants to expand capacity by 200-300 MW a year.

In July, Infrastructure India reportedly launched a takeover bid for independent power firm Indian Energy. Earlier in the year, International Finance Corp., the investment arm of the World Bank, said it would invest $15 million in power producer Simran Wind Project, specifically to finance 126.90 MW of wind power projects in India's Tamil Nadu region.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Cleantech
• India
• Cleantech
• TPG Capital
• Goldman Sachs
• Infrastructure India
• IFC