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Private equity fund Actis Capital, which has just completed raising $2.75 billion, has earmarked $500 million for investing in India’s wind and solar projects, according to industry sources.
Actis completed its fourth energy fund a couple of days back. It had targeted $2 billion, but ended up with $2.75 billion upon oversubscription.
In a press release, Actis’s Partner and Co-head of energy business, Mikael Karlsson, notes that “as the leading growth market investor in the energy sector, we have never seen a more compelling market opportunity.”
In 2013, Actis had raised $1.5 billion for its ‘Actis Energy 3’. A substantial part of it has been invested in India.
In a parallel development, it is learnt that Actis has appointed Gaurav Sood as its CEO.
Sood was the Managing Director of SolaireDirect, the French company that made news when it won a 5-MW solar project in December 2011, quoting a then record low price of ₹7.49 a kWhr.
SolaireDirect has since been taken over by the French utility Engie. Actis is an old hand in India, and has funded several renewable energy projects in the country in the last decade.
One of its larger investees is Ostro Energy, which was in the news last month, having won 250 MW of solar in Madhya Pradesh auctions last month, quoting a price of ₹3.29 a kWhr, (averaged over 25 years.)
Actis is very aggressive in India, said an industry source, who requested not to be named.
It intends to build a renewable energy portfolio of 2 GW, mostly solar — in addition to Ostro.
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