India's renewable energy developers raise over Rs. 26,300 cr in H1 2021: Report

According to a report released on Wednesday, India's renewable energy (RE) producers issued green bonds worth Rs. 26,300 crore (US$ 3.5 billion) in the first half (H1) of 2021, breaking previous one-year records.

Green bonds issued in overseas markets have raised more than Rs. 78,200 crore (US$ 10.51 billion) for India's RE developers since 2014, with Greenko and ReNew Power accounting for around 70% of all issuances by value.

The CEEW Centre for Energy Finance (CEEW-CEF) issued a research that said, “Proceeds from the Rs. 78,200 crore (US$ 10.51 billion)  of capital obtained have directly refinanced debt for over 10 GW of India's RE projects.”

According to the study, wind and solar accounted for 42% of the refinanced portfolio, with a combined capacity of 8.4 GW. The balance is made up of hydropower. This means that 8.4% of India's non-hydro renewable energy capacity, totaling 100 GW, is debt-financed using foreign money.

“India's non-hydro renewable energy portfolio just exceeded 100 GW, but we need to increase capital mobilisation to reach 450 GW by 2030... Green bonds would be critical for this transformation, which will necessitate investments of over Rs. 15 lakh crore (US$ 201.67 billion) in electricity production capacity alone,” said Mr. Gagan Sidhu, director of CEEW-CEF and research co-author.

As of March 2020, he added, Indian institutional lenders' outstanding exposure to the whole power industry was over Rs. 13 lakh crore (US$ 174.78 billion).

The findings underscore the potential of green bond markets to help India’s ambitious effort to attain energy-independence by 2047, a target recently declared by Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi.

According to the report, green bonds issued by Indian developers drew a lot of interest from the market, with an average oversubscription of 360%.

According to Mr. Shreyas Garg, Consultant, CEEW-CEF, and primary author of the report, “international green bonds have mostly been raised by India's established utility-scale developers.”

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.