CDC Group, the UK's development finance institution (DFI) and impact investor, today announced Rs 250 crore investment into Fourth Partner Energy, India’s leading solar energy company for commercial and industrial businesses.

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The capital from CDC Group will be in the form of Non-Convertible Debentures and Fourth Partner Energy will deploy this mezzanine capital towards growing its renewable solutions platform across India and South Asia. This also marks CDC’s foray into India’s Commercial & Industrial solar segment and Fourth Partner Energy’s first major round of fund-raising in 2021.

CDC’s investment will support India’s clean energy transition and enable the provision of cleaner energy to businesses. It will fund approximately 217 megawatts (MW) Greenfield renewable power generation in India, to displace primarily thermal power generation, avoiding 258k tonnes of annual CO2 emissions. CDC’s facility will catalyse the growth of the sector by helping to accelerate the uptake of renewable energy by corporates at a quicker pace.

Announcing this investment, Srini Nagarajan, Managing Director and Head of Asia at CDC, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Fourth Partner Energy, a leading player in the C&I solar in India, at a time when the nascent sector is playing an increasingly important role in decarbonizing businesses.

CDC is committed to making long-term investments alongside our investment partners, with a clear purpose to bolster efforts toward achieving a net-zero carbon future in India and across the region. We have been building scale in the renewable power sector and this investment into Fourth Partner Energy, on the distributed solar side of the sector, is a strategic investment that further enhances India’s renewable power capacity. We are proud to continue our partnership with TPG Capital by backing a business that is contributing to the enhancement of India green energy generation.”

To date, Fourth Partner Energy manages a portfolio of 550 MW across its distributed and open access solar portfolios. The company has commenced operations across Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Vietnam. In Indonesia, 4PEL has tied up with integrated energy major Indika Energy to offer solar solutions to corporates there.

Vivek Subramanian, Co-founder and Executive Director at Fourth Partner Energy further highlighted the company’s growth plans saying, “We currently have an aggressive target to achieve 3GW of solar capacity across all our verticals by 2025. This will mean significantly scaling up our current portfolio while growing our battery storage, energy trading and EV charging capabilities. India’s C&I solar segment is growing exponentially, driven by strong sustainability mandates from all corporates. A long-term and patient capital provider like CDC fits perfectly into 4PEL’s financing ecosystem. CDC’s funding, guidance and sustainability expertise will pave the way for the company to leverage and grow our dominant position in this market.”

In 2020, the company secured a Rs 110 Cr ($15 M) round of funding from Swiss climate action fund ResponsAbility and a Rs 126 crore ($16 million) investment from a consortium of European lenders, led by Symbiotics.

Fourth Partner Energy has also tied up with Lithium Urban Technologies to form a 50:50 JV, Shuchi Anant Virya to offer EV charging infrastructure solutions. The JV has commissioned EV charging hubs across Gurugram, Pune, Kolkata and has partnered with HPCL to set up chargers across its retail fuel outlets.