Kumar Mangalam Birla-controlled diversified business conglomerate Aditya Birla Group has joined hands with Sri Lanka-based Lotus Renewable Energy Pvt. Ltd to launch a $100 million (around Rs 667 crore) fund that will invest in Asian projects which are involved in clean energy production.
DealStreetAsia reported citing a top executive of Lotus Renewable that the fund will provide debt and equity financing to small and medium-sized clean energy projects.
The fund, which will be managed by Singapore-based Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company Pte. Ltd, will start operations by investing in projects in India and Australia. Subsequently, the mandate will be spread to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The fund, which is likely to mark its first close at $30 million in two months, will prefer to invest in sectors such as small hydro, solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, energy storage and smart grids. It will also look at investing in distressed assets.
Lotus Renewable, which mainly provides solar photovoltaic solutions and also runs mini hydro power plants, has already committed $5 million for the fund.
Email queries sent to Aditya Birla Group and Lotus Renewable did not elicit any response till the time of filing this report.
Earlier, Aditya Birla Group tied up with Dubai-based private equity firm Abraaj Group to build a large-scale renewable energy platform focused on developing utility-scale solar power plants in India.
In the past, another Indian business conglomerate Bharti Enterprises Ltd was reported to be forming a joint venture for producing renewable energy in the country in partnership with Japanese internet and telecom major SoftBank Corp and Taiwan-based design and electronics manufacturing services firm Foxconn Technology Group.
India's renewable energy sector has seen a lot of activity over the past couple of years after the government set ambitious capacity addition targets. The government aims to achieve 175 GW of renewable power generation capacity by 2022. This includes 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind power capacity. India's renewable energy capacity is currently around 44 GW.
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