Diversified cash rich firm Piramal Enterprises Ltd's (PEL) and Dutch pension fund manager APG have together committed to invest Rs 900 crore ($132 million) to power the Essel Infrastructure’s solar IPP (independent power producer) platform across India, it said on Tuesday.
As part of the transaction, PEL and APG will jointly invest in Essel Green Energy Private Ltd, the solar platform vehicle of Essel Infraprojects Ltd. Essel Green Energy, currently owns 160 MW of solar IPP assets in four states of India, of which, 110 MW is operational and 50 MW is currently under execution.
Essel Infraprojects' CEO & whole time director, Ashok Agarwal, said, “With the impetus provided by the central government to solar energy we are upbeat about the outlook for the industry.â€
Essel Infraprojects an enterprise of Subhash Chandra led Essel Group, plans to ramp up its solar power capacity to 1,000 MW in the next 2-3 years.
PEL had formed an alliance with APG for investing in rupee denominated mezzanine instruments issued by Indian infrastructure companies with a target investment of $1 billion by 2017.
Jayesh Desai, co-head, Structured Investments Group- PEL, said that the alliance sees great potential in green energy as a segment.
"Given the government's focus on non-conventional energy and Essel Infra’s strong track-record, we are confident that the investment will yield good results,†he said.
Indian government aims to increase its solar installations from under 5 GW now to 100 GW by 2022 — more than double the present solar capacity of China and Germany, the two biggest solar nations.
Hans-Martin Aerts, head of infrastructure investments Asia Pacific at APG, said “We view India as an attractive renewable energy market with favourable growth dynamics. APG is a strong supporter of increased investments in sustainable energy generation.â€
EY (formerly Ernst and Young) was the financial advisor to the Essel Group for the transaction.