The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, will lend $50 million to two wholly-owned subsidiaries of Continuum Wind Energy (India) Pvt. Ltd to expand access to clean energy and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. IFC also helped mobilise a loan of $100 million for the project from YES Bank. The financing will be used to construct a 170-MW wind power plant in Madhya Pradesh. The subsidiaries, D.J. Energy Pvt. Ltd and Uttar Urja Projects Energy Pvt. Ltd, will develop the project. The project will annually generate 330 GW hours of clean power to reach 300,000 people. The project will help avoid nearly 270,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. In a statement, IFC said an estimated 300 million people, around one-fourth of India’s population, lacked access to electricity. It added that the country suffered from power shortages with peak hour gaps varying between 9 to 13 per cent.
The government’s National Action Plan on Climate Change has set a target of generating 15 percent of power from renewable energy sources by 2020. In India, IFC has a committed portfolio of about $340 million in renewable energy projects.
“By supporting this wind project, IFC will help expand access to clean power for many. IFC’s investment in renewable energy in India will balance the country’s energy mix, and improve its energy security,” said Serge Devieux, Regional Director for South Asia, IFC.
Continuum Wind, with the support of Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, a global infrastructure investment fund, has achieved an aggregate operating capacity of about 150 MW, with 260 MW under construction and about 580 MW in development.
Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank and the central government recently signed two loans totaling $150 million to help build transmission lines that will support renewable energy development in Rajasthan. The $150 million in loans form the first tranche of the $500 million Rajasthan Renewable Energy Transmission Investment Program approved by ADB in 2013. The loans will finance high-voltage transmission lines and sub-stations to be built by the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Ltd. The state has significant potential for wind and solar energy development.
The transmission investment programme is expected to spur the development of renewable energy in the resource-rich areas of Western Rajasthan and help deliver more environmentally friendly energy to the state and national grids.
The state government will provide counterpart financing of about $127 million to cover the balance of the costs of activities conducted under the first tranche. Projects under the first loan are due to be completed by December 2016.
