Mercom: US$736 million invested in India’s solar sector in Q4 2016

Share

Mercom Capital has released figures which show substantial investments into India’s solar sector in the fourth quarter of 2016. The company’s Q4 and Annual 2016 Solar Funding and M&A Report shows US$367 million in total corporate funding in six deals and $369 million five project funding deals, for a total of $736 million.

The six corporate funding deals include Azure Power’s $62 million initial public offering, which is a first for an Indian solar developer. The company has additionally raised $75 million through a private placement, and ~$25 million in pre-IPO rounds. Additionally Hindustan Clean Energy raised $130 million during the quarter as the largest debt financing deal.

On the project side Azure Power was the biggest player, raising $309 million for at least 450 MW of projects in four states and New Delhi. This dwarfed all other project finance deals.

Popular content

Mercom also reported 764 MW of solar project acquisitions in India, but only had a monetary figure for one of these, the $392 million sale of 587 MW of SunEdison projects to Greenko Energies. Suzlon also sold its share in five projects in Telangana totaling 110 MW to multiple parties including Canadian Solar.

It remains to be seen how much the very high level of activity during this quarter was due to unusual events like the sale of the SunEdison projects and Azure’s IPO, and how much of this is simply a symptom of the extremely rapid growth of India’s solar market, which is expected to hit more than 9 GW this year.

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.