Fourth Partner Energy Bags Rs 250 Crore Investment From UK’s CDC

In a major milestone, Indian solar energy company Forth Partner Energy (FPE) has received an investment worth Rs 250 crore from UK-owned development finance institution CDC, for expanding its renewable solutions platform across India and South Asia.

Hyderabad-based Fourth Partner Energy boasts of a portfolio of 550 MW, spread across its distributed and open access solar portfolios. The firm has successfully expanded its operations abroad, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Vietnam. To offer solar solutions to corporates in Indonesia, the company has also teamed up with integrated energy company Indika Energy.

In July last year, FPE announced that it had raised about Rs 110 crore in debt funding from Zurich-based asset manager responsAbility. The same year, the distributed solar player also acquired Rs 126 crore in investment from a Symbiotics-led consortium of European lenders. Additionally, the firm has collaborated with commercial EV fleet operator Lithium Urban Technologies to form a 50:50 joint venture called Shuchi Anant Virya to offer EV charging infrastructure solutions. The joint venture has commissioned EV charging hubs across Gurugram, Pune, Kolkata and has partnered with HPCL to set up chargers across its retail fuel outlets.

While India has not yet committed to a ‘net-zero’ target on account of expected rise in emissions in the next few decades,  needed to accelerate economic activity and pull large swathes of Indian population out of poverty, the country has been pursuing its climate goals under the Paris Agreement zealously and is on track to meet 21% of its pledge to reduce emissions intensity of GDP by 33-35% by 2030. CDC states that its investment will give a boost to India’s clean energy transition and enable provision of cleaner energy to businesses. The present financial support from CDC is expected to fund approximately 217 MW of greenfield renewable power generation in the country, to displace primarily thermal power generation, avoiding 258k tonnes of annual CO2 emissions. The company believes that its facility will catalyse growth of the sector by helping to accelerate uptake of renewable energy by corporates at a quicker pace.

Srini Nagarajan, Managing Director and Head of Asia at CDC, announced the investment and said, “We are thrilled to partner with Fourth Partner Energy, a leading player in the C&I solar in India, at a time when the nascent sector is playing an increasingly important role in decarbonizing businesses.” He added that the company has been building scale in the renewable power sector and the present investment into Fourth Partner Energy, on the distributed solar side of the sector, is a strategic investment that further enhances India’s renewable power capacity.

Speaking about the current investment by CDC, Vivek Subramanian, Co-founder and Executive Director at Fourth Partner Energy, said, “India’s C&I solar segment is growing exponentially, driven by strong sustainability mandates from all corporates. A long-term and patient capital provider like CDC fits perfectly into 4PEL’s financing ecosystem. CDC’s funding, guidance and sustainability expertise will pave the way for the company to leverage and grow our dominant position in this market.” He also revealed that at present the company is aggressively pursuing a target of 3 GW of solar capacity to be installed across all its verticals by 2025, for which the firm’s current portfolio needs scaling up and its battery storage, energy trading and EV charging capabilities need expansion.