PE players see India’s wind potential

A sizeable portion of this year's total has gone into wind power-related assets. Statistics released with the announcement of Greenko Group and General Electric's pledge to spend $115 million on wind farms makes a clear case for private equity involvement.

India's wind capacity stood at 15,000 megawatts as of August 31 and it is already the world's third-biggest market for new wind park installations after China and the US. Yet Greenko estimates that the country has harnessed less than 25% of its wind energy potential. The government wants to boost capacity by 2,400 MW by March 31, 2012. Farooq Abdullah, federal minister for renewable energy, said last month that India would require $100 billion to add 50 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2020.

TPG Capital-backed Greenko and GE Energy Financial Services will contribute $65 million and $50 million, respectively, to the construction of projects with a capacity of 500 MW. This is sufficient to power 875,000 Indian homes and displace 700,000 tons per year in greenhouse gas emissions, according to GE. The first 65 MW project, in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra state, will be completed by December.

It is GE's first investment in India's renewable energy sector. Greenko, meanwhile, wants to ramp up its national capacity to 1,000 MW by 2015 and claims to be building farms in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan states.

"Wind power is an increasingly important part of the Indian energy market, and through our partnership with GE, a global energy leader, we are well positioned to play an important role in helping to meet the country's energy needs with clean power using advanced technology," says Anil Kumar Chalamalasetty, CEO and managing director of Greenko.

Barely two weeks ago, Goldman Sachs' private equity arm paid INR10 billion ($202 million) for a majority stake in Indian start-up ReNew Wind Power, marking one of the largest investments into the country's clean energy sector.

ReNew was only founded last year by Sumant Sinha, a former COO of Suzlon Energy, one of the world's leading turbine producers alongside GE. The company plans to add 200-300 MW of capacity every year and have 1,000 MW online by 2015. It is currently developing a 25MW wind farm in Gujarat and a 60 MW project in Maharshtra.

Earlier this year, the International Finance Corp. announced that it would inject $15 million into wind power firm Simran, specifically to develop 126.90 MW of projects in Tamil Nadu.

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• Topics
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• South Asia
• Cleantech
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• TPG Capital