Renewable energy firm Avaada Group is in talks with global lenders, such as Standard Chartered Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), BNP Paribas, and Societe Generale (SocGen), to raise project finance debt of over $1 billion (Rs 8,500 crore) to fund its pipeline of projects.
“Considering a large share of central utility projects, we are in active conversation with several international financial institutions to raise funds at globally competitive terms,” said Vineet Mittal, chairman, Avaada Group.
In the last financial year, Avaada raised project finance debt mostly from domestic institutions. The firm raised project finance debt of over $1 billion in FY25 from institutions such as SBI, Standard Chartered, NaBFID, PFC, Axis Bank, etc, Mittal said.
To put it in context, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has estimated a total debt requirement of Rs 15-20 lakh crore by 2030 for deploying 500 gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy.
For the next three years, Avaada Group is expecting investments of ₹35,000 crore to ₹40,000 crore for expansion in renewable energy, electronics manufacturing expansion, PSP (pumped storage projects) development, green hydrogen and ammonia capacities, he said.
“We currently have more 3,000 MWp of solar and wind projects under construction and we are working closely with CTU (Central Transmission Utility) and STU (State Transmission Utility) to align commissioning timelines with grid connectivity and bay-end readiness,” he added.
Currently, the group’s operational capacity stands at around 5.4 GWp and it is on track to achieve its 11 GWp target by 2026 and 30 GWp by 2030, he said.
In 2023, Avaada raised $1.07 billion from Brookfield to fund its green hydrogen and green ammonia projects in the country as part of its $1.3 billion fundraising plan. It is setting up green ammonia and green hydrogen projects in Odisha’s Gopalpur.
“While we continue to assess the market, any revision of these targets will be done post FY26, reflecting the realities of permitting grid infrastructure readiness and market demand,” Mittal said.
The company recently signed MoUs with Maharashtra government for two PSP projects totaling 3,650 MW. Its first PSP project in Uttar Pradesh is in advanced stage of layout freezing from CEA and awaiting environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment, he said.
“One of the critical challenges in PSP remains the permitting timelines across multiple agencies, which we believe will require streamlined, single-window facilitation to accelerate India’s energy storage roadmap,” Mittal said.
Avaada’s larger peers are also investing actively. Adani Green is looking at an addition of 5 GW of clean energy addition in FY26 with a capex of $ 3.6 billion.
Tata Power is planning to invest around Rs 1.25 lakh crore till FY30 in order to double its operational capacity to 32 GW from 15.6 GW, the company said last year.