Rajasthan Biggest Beneficiary Of Renewable Energy Lending: Report

By Manish Kumar/ Updated On Mon, Dec 11th, 2023

Highlights :

The study assessed 68 project finance loans across 11 coal and renewable energy projects in India that reached financial closure between January 2022 and December 2022.

Rajasthan Biggest Beneficiary Of Renewable Energy Lending: Report

A latest report by Climate Trends and the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) on the financing of coal and renewable projects claimed that Rajasthan remained the largest beneficiary of renewable energy lending in the country.

The study assessed 68 project finance loans across 11 coal and renewable energy projects in India that reached financial closure between January 2022 and December 2022. The report said that Rajasthan remained the highest beneficiary in 2021 too. It said that it received the highest of Rs 7,579 crore of renewable energy lending.

It said that the total project finance loans amounted to Rs 18,557 crore of which 100% flowed into renewable energy projects. The total capacity across all projects identified was 2.943 Gigawatt (GW).

The report said that for the second year in a row, 100% of the value of the project finance loans identified in 2022 in India went to renewable energy projects. However, the total amount of INR 18,577 crore (USD 2.36 billion) is a 45% decrease from 2021 levels.

The report said, “Primary financing – funding allocated to construct new projects – continued to dominate the project financing landscape in India. Over 85% of all deals were categorised as primary financing deals, with refinancing constituting the remaining 15%.”

It also added, “Like last year, solar power was the dominant renewable energy, accounting for six out of eleven deals, or 40% of financing. However, solar lending in 2022 dropped by over 64% to INR 7,361 crore (USD 935 million), financing 1,849 megawatts (MW) of solar projects.”

The report also said that wind power comprised merely 4 percent of the total renewable energy lending in 2022, financing two projects of around 144 MW of wind energy. “This represents a more than 80 percent decrease compared to 2021. On the other hand, the report said that hybrid projects for both solar and wind accounted for 56% of financing and capacity of 950 MW.