British International Investment commits $89m for India’s RE generation

The amount will fund two renewable projects in the country.

UK’s development finance institution and impact investor, British International Investment (BII), committed $89m to scale up India’s clean energy capacity.

In a statement, the institution said $47m of the amount is a follow-on commitment to renewable energy firm Fourth Partner Energy, to fund the around 294-megawatts (MW) of greenfield renewable generation capacity across India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

The investment brings BII’s total funding to  Fourth Partner Energy to $80m, with the aim of promoting clean energy alternatives to coal in South and Southeast Asia.

Aside from the additional capacity that will increase power supply to the company’s commercial and industrial customers, this will also help avoid around 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Meanwhile, the remaining $42m will be the debt investment to Thar Surya 1 Private Limited, an Indian subsidiary of Enel S.p.A, Italy, which forms part of the around $200m projects that aims to fund the developments and maintenance of a 300MW solar project in India.

The project that will replace thermal generation in the grid will abate 697,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually, and cater to the demand of 150,000 consumers in the country.

Srini Nagarajan, managing director and head of Asia at BII, said, the institution’s investments to the projects is a critical step in achieving net-zero goals and is a continuation of its over 30 years of investing in India.

“These two investments demonstrate our commitment to leverage our partnerships and expertise in the energy sector, to help deploy clean renewable energy at scale and support India’s green growth,” Nagarajan said. 

“We are pleased to put into action BII’s pledge to commit $1 billion in climate finance to India over the next five years. Channelling the best of British finance, BII is thrilled to help expand economic productivity, promote inclusive access to clean energy, and facilitate sustainable growth in India for the long-term,” the managing director added.

BII has set a target of 30% of its new investments to be in climate finance, particularly in clean and renewable infrastructure, under its new five-year strategy.