The investment arm of General Electric, GE Energy Financial Services, has come to an agreement with RattanIndia Group to invest $90 million (INR 585 crore) in its solar project.
The investment by both the parties is on a project that will develop 500-megawattt solar assets in the states of Rajasthan, Utter Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.
GE Energy Financial Services will have 49% stake in this project with the rest in the hands of RattanIndia, formerly known as Indiabulls Power.
RattanIndia’s legal advisor in this project was J Sagar Associates (JSA) which is led by Rupinder Malik.
The investing arm of GE had come to India back in 2014 with $24 million investment. It was for a 151-megawatt project. That project was built by Welspun Renewables Energy Pvt. Ltd in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
Apart from the solar project, the GE’s financial energy firm has also invested in Atria Power and Greenko Group PLC.
GE Energy Financial Services has up till now invested $12 billion around the world. The prime targets for the firm are solar and wind energy resources.
Over the past couple of years, the Indian government has been keen to increase capacity addition targets. The goal is to increase the output of renewable energy replacing the non-renewable sources of energy.
By 2022 the Indian government has a goal of achieving 175 gigawatts of renewable energy production. Therefore there is a lot of activity in this space. The other projects include one 100 gigawatts solar plant along with a 60 gigawatt of wind power capacity. At present, the total capacity of the renewable energy resource of India is around 44 gigawatt.
The falling prices of the solar panels have seen a rise of interest for the investors. In India also the investors are keen to take advantage of this opportunity. Moreover, the yield of wind energy has also increased considerably over of the years.
The overseas pension firms are eyeing for the Indian renewable market. Some of those are Canada Pension Plan Board and Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec. The Indian solar market is hot right now.
RattanIndia is in the business of power generation. Moreover, it has manufacturing business of cement and mining as well. At present, the firm has an installed capacity of 1,620 megawatts which will increase to 2,700 megawatts.
The company was part of the larger conglomerate of Indiabulls Group. The partner Rajiv Rattan formed RattanIndia in July 2014 as a separate entity.