Private equity firm KKR has decided to invest an additional $250 million (about Rs 2,044 crore) in Serentica Renewables, a decarbonization platform set up by mining billionaire Anil Agarwal.
The fresh investment comes less than six months after the US-based buyout firm committed $400 million to Serentica, which seeks to enable the energy transition by providing complex clean energy solutions for energy-intensive industries.
Serentica said in a statement Monday it is now gearing up to install 4,000 MW of renewable energy capacity that will aid clean energy delivery to large-scale industrial customers.
Serentica, which is developing solar and wind power projects across Rajasthan, Karnataka and Maharashtra, says it has inked a new set of power delivery agreements to deliver green energy to a bunch of leading industrial customers in the country.
Once these new projects are commissioned they will supply 9 billion units of green energy, thereby cutting down on carbon emissions.
“This investment will enable us to further accelerate large-scale decarbonization of the power-guzzling commercial and industrial segment,” said Pratik Agarwal, Director, Serentica Renewables.
“As India continues to develop at pace, clean energy solutions will play a growing and important role in meeting the country’s energy demands, especially in the industrial and hard-to-abate industries that Serentica looks to support,” said Hardik Shah, Partner at KKR.
Serentica is a new platform that was set up only last year. It is jointly controlled by KKR and Agarwal’s Twinstar Overseas Ltd, which in turn owns controlling stakes in Sterlite Power Transmission Ltd and Sterlite Technologies Ltd.
KKR’s latest investment comes even as it is reportedly looking to sell its India-based renewable energy platform Virescent, which it had launched in October 2020.
In October last year, Mint reported that KKR was looking to exit the platform in a deal, which when it happens, would mark the first exit for the private equity major’s inaugural Asia Pacific Infrastructure Fund from India.
The PE firm started investing in India’s infrastructure space in 2019 with the acquisition of a substantial stake in IndiGrid, a listed infrastructure investment trust, which owns and operates power transmission assets. It has since gone on to acquire a whole host of power and road assets. KKR’s infra investments come from its first Asia Pacific Infrastructure Fund that raised $3.9 billion.
