Brookfield commits $1bn to Indian energy platform Avaada

Thailand’s Global Power Synergy, an existing shareholder with a 42.9% equity holding in Avaada, has pledged to invest an additional USD 233m. Global Power has committed about USD 779m to the company to date, including a USD 68m investment last April.

Avaada was established in 2009 as a solar specialist by Vineet Mittal, a serial renewables entrepreneur who previously founded Welspun Energy, a local solar player that sold its operating assets to Tata Power in 2016. The following year, Mittal rechristened the demerged entity as Avaada.

Solar-related services, including equipment manufacturing, are still a significant part of the business. Avaada claims to have commissioned the largest solar plant globally with a capacity of 1.25 gigawatts at a single location for an independent producer.

The company has also diversified into manufacturing green hydrogen, green methanol, and green ammonia. Green hydrogen involves using power from renewable sources to electrolyse water, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen. It is hoped to be useful as fuel in the medium term; the largest market currently is cleaner versions of industrials chemicals such as methanol and ammonia.

“There are a lot of headlines about green hydrogen, and we believe it will play a big role in facilitating energy transition, but we must be disciplined about timing,” Daniel Cheng, a renewables-focused managing director at Brookfield, told AVCJ last August.

“[Japan and Korea] will have to rely on hydrogen and ammonia because the sectors that make up most of their economies are power intensive and wind is intermittent. That’s why they are spending a lot of time overseas trying to get ahead of the curve on these technologies.”

Brookfield is investing via its Global Transition Fund, which closed on USD 15bn last year. It has backed at least two other Indian operations, namely CleanMax Solar and Sustainable Agri Solutions. A second vintage has recently launched with a target of USD 20bn.

Avaada claims to have won several tenders from corporate and utility customers representing a combined 1.8 GW in the past three months. It currently operates a renewable energy portfolio of about 4 GW and has about 7 GW in various stages of development. It plans to have 30 GW by 2030.

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• Topics
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