Ircon Partners With NIIFL, Ayana to Explore Opportunities in Solar Energy

Ircon International has signed a pact with NIIFL and Ayana Renewable Power for exploring opportunities in the solar energy segment.

Ircon International Limited, formerly Indian Railway Construction Limited, an engineering and construction organisation has announced that it has signed a pact with the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Limited (NIIFL) and Ayana Renewable Power for exploring opportunities in the solar energy segment.

NIIFL and Ircon will evaluate strategic partnerships across infrastructure projects and have agreed in principle to identify, bid and execute solar energy projects through joint ventures/consortium arrangements, as per the agreement. Ayana is an independent power producer with 800 MW of renewable energy projects under development.

“Ircon, a Miniratna Schedule – A Public Sector Enterprises has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NIIFL and Ayana Renewable Power Private Limited (AYANA), a NIIF platform company to explore and collaborate on opportunities in the solar energy sector,” the company said in a statement.

“Through this collaboration, we are diversifying our business in the solar energy sector. Further, this collaboration is aligned with the Government of India’s policies on the renewable energy sector and we believe the solar energy sector has enormous opportunities. We hope our association with AYANA and NIIFL to explore projects in the solar energy sector will be rewarding to all stakeholders,” Ircon Chairman & Managing Director SK Chaudhary said.

This collaboration will enable the execution of renewable energy projects at scale by utilising the complementary strengths of all partners, it said.

“We are pleased to partner with IRCON and AYANA to invest in suitable projects in the solar energy sector. Given the vast untapped potential of this sector and our focus on making sustainable investments,” NIIFL MD and CEO Sujoy Bose said.

The partnership will further consider suitable opportunities for solar energy production for Indian Railways as they intend to increase the share of renewables in their overall energy mix. In January, Union Minister for Railways and Commerce Piyush Goyal had announced that the entire network of railways in the country will run on electricity by 2024.

“We are embarking on rapid electrification of the rail network by 2024, we expect the entire railways to be 100 percent run on electricity,” Goyal had said while speaking at the India-Brazil Business Forum. “It will be the first railway in the entire world, of this scale and size, to be run on electricity and by 2030, we plan to make the entire railway network a zero-emission network. It will run on clean energy,” he added.