SunEdison, the world’s biggest renewable energy company, plans to offload equity in a 500 megawatt project that it won in India by making a bid that rivals said was too low to make commercial sense. The US company has approached potential buyers for the sale of equity and has consulted investment bankers to value the project it won in November with a bid of Rs 4.63 per unit in an auction conducted by NTPC for solar plants in Andhra Pradesh under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, industry sources said. SunEdison can sell up to a 49% stake in the project initially and can exit only one year after it is commissioned. Pashupathy Gopalan, president, Asia Pacific, SunEdison, did not rule out the possibility of bringing in an equity partner, as allowed by the power purchase agreement. “We are always looking for equity investors as a business model in addition to selling our assets to our YieldCo,” he said. “The power purchase agreement we’re about to sign for the Andhra project allows us to sell up to 49% stake after signing the PPA.” He insisted that SunEdison was extremely serious about executing the project. “We have made an equity infusion of Rs 120 crore into the company and have submitted performance bank guarantees of Rs 150 crore to NTPC. We have done all the paperwork and are waiting for NTPC’s response before signing the PPA,” he added. “In our business model, we will continue to explore three strategies on an ongoing basis — holding assets in our balance sheet, selling assets to our YieldCo and partnering with third-party investors,” Gopalan said.
Source: Economic TimesSunEdison plans to offload equity in 500 MW Andhra Pradesh project.
Industry: Energy 2016-02-26
