Goldman, ADB, GEF commit $140m to India's ReNew Power

The company has now raised $390 million in equity from private investors, according to a statement, following a $250 million commitment from Goldman in 2011.

Goldman, which is the majority shareholder in ReNew, planned on investing a further $135 million last year, but openend up the round in response to interest from other parties. Goldman's contribution is now $70 million, with ADB and GEF putting in $50 million and $20 million, respectively.

ReNew currently has annual wind energy capacity of 460 megawatts across 13 projects in five states, selling its output to state electricity boards and large industrial companies. Maharashtra accounts for the bulk of its portfolio. A further 500 MW is in the pipeline. The company launched its solar power initiative a year ago and already has a pipeline of close to 60 MW, with a goal of reaching 100 MW in 3-5 years.

ReNew is also implementing a data analytics and business intelligence platform, which will monitor assets in real time and perform online diagnostics to improve wind farm performance.

"We welcome ADB and GEF as investors in sharing our commitment to support India's clean energy needs through their investments in ReNew Power. Building on our initial $250 million investment from 2011, which at the time was the largest investment in India's renewable energy generation sector, the company continues to grow and create jobs in addition to helping reduce India's carbon footprint," said Ankur Sahu, co-head of private equity in Asia at Goldman Sachs.

ADB said its investment was intended to help India meet its clean energy targets, noting that the renewables shares of the country's energy mix dropped from 44% in 1970 to 31% in 2011. The extra 1,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity that is expected to be generated by ReNew's projects will eliminate nearly 1 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

India's 11th Five-Year Plan for 2007-2012 targeted additional power generation capacity of 79 GW but only 55 GW was achieved. The goal for the current five-year plan is 88 GW, of which 30 GW is expected to come from renewables. The government wants the renewable share of overall capacity to remain at 31% until 2023. By this point, the private sector share of installed renewable capacity is expected to reach 50%, up from 33% in 2011.

In 2010, the government set a target of 70 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022, with grid connected solar power set to account for 20 GW of this total.

Last month, ADB committed $50 million to the renewable energy division of India's Welspun Group. The group said this was its largest direct equity investment in the renewable energy space. ADB has also backed NSL Renewable Power Private.

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• Topics
• Cleantech
• South Asia
• Expansion
• Cleantech
• India
• Growth capital
• Goldman Sachs
• Asian Development Bank