Japanese telecoms SoftBank, Bharti Enterprises and Foxconn Technology announced their joint venture to make investment in the Indian solar and wind market.
SBG Cleantech, which will be headquartered in Delhi, will focus on solar and wind energy markets. Manoj Kohli, who until recently led Bharti Enterprise’s emerging businesses, will be the executive chairman and Raman Nanda will be the CEO of the joint venture.
The venture will invest in renewable energy plants across India. SBG Cleantech aims to participate in the 2015-16 round of solar power plant tenders under the National Solar Mission (NSM) program and state-specific solar programs.
“The total project cost is $20 billion and designed to further Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of achieving 100 GW solar power, which he told me about in Tokyo,” SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son told reporters.
Softbank will be the project leader with majority stake, while Bharti will be a strategic minority shareholder. Foxconn Technology will have a smaller minority stake.
Masayoshi Son, chairman & CEO of SoftBank, said: “We have made investments in the technology sector here. With this partnership, our goal is to create a market-leading clean energy company, to fuel India’s growth with clean and renewable sources of energy.”
Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises, said: “This project will contribute to the Prime Minister’s vision of meeting the country’s energy demands through clean sources.”
Solar in India is likely to grow by 250 percent in 2015. Globally, renewable energy outpaced the growth of fossil fuels in 2015 and a record 107 GW was added through wind, solar, geothermal and other natural sources.
India has recently set a target of 100GW solar and 60GW wind target by 2022. Government of India’s mission is to achieve 24×7 power for all and the renewable energy target by 2022. India has achieved a base of 3.7 GW of solar power.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
