The company is developing solar and wind projects in the fast-expanding Indian market, and plans to expand its operations across Asia.
British International Investment, the UK’s development finance institution (DFI), is providing a $75m (€65m) financing facility to Blueleaf Energy, an Singapore-based renewable energy company, to support its expansion in India and Asia more widely.
Blueleaf, which is owned by a Macquarie Asset Management fund, is an independent power producer developing 2 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity in India. This could generate more than 3.2GWh a year of clean energy, displacing around 3.1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, according to BII.
The investment is seen as a foundation for further collaboration in support of Blueleaf Energy’s plans to deliver 10GW of installed capacity across Asia. Currently, Blueleaf has a total pipeline of over 3 GW wind and solar energy generation projects and 2 GWh of storage projects across Asia. The company has operations in southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as India.
Srini Nagarajan, head of Asia at BII, said the DFI was committed to accelerating the clean energy and climate resilient transition in south and south-east Asia.
“Our focus is on investments that de-risk projects, demonstrate viability and encourage market participation to mobilise private capital into climate finance. Our support to Blueleaf exemplifies this approach,” he said.
The investment is being made against the backdrop of India’s drive to install 500GW of non-fossil fuel power capacity by 2030. That figure currently stands at around 256GW, just over half of the country’s total electricity generating capacity, according to government data. India added 28 GW of new non-fossil fuel capacity in the first half of the current fiscal year alone.
India is BII’s largest market globally, and the country’s renewables sector is likely to remain a focus for the DFI, given the growth in demand for investment.
Leslie Maasdorp, BII’s CEO, recently told Impact Investor that the UK DFI was shifting towards investment in platform-based models, such as its Ayana renewable energy platform in India, which has mobilised over $1bn (€862m) at both project and platform levels.
In May, BII invested in its first venture in India’s solar technology sector with a $100m (€89m) of funding to ReNew Photovoltaics in return for a minority stake. The DFI is also an anchor investor in Theia Ventures, an Indian-based early stage, venture capital fund financing decarbonisation solutions, which said in October it had raised $30m from investors.
