Indian infrastructure finance company, PTC India Financial Services (PFS), has partnered with the U.S.-India Clean Energy Finance (USICEF) to mobilize debt financing for distributed solar energy in India.

This is good news as financing distributed solar projects has been a major challenge in India and one of the primary reasons why the country has only installed 3 GW of rooftop solar to date.

Dr. Pawan Singh, Managing Director & CEO, said that “As one of the pioneers in the clean energy space, we have been actively exploring new opportunities in distributed solar.”

“The PFS family is delighted to be a part of the USICEF initiative, an innovative facility which presents us with an opportunity to finance and deploy high-impact development projects which can contribute in achieving India’s distributed energy target of 40 GW by 2022,” Singh added.

“Distributed solar energy is critical for India’s clean energy transition,” added Dr. Dhruba Purkayastha, USICEF Director at Climate Policy Initiative. “With PFS’s support, we hope to create an even bigger impact.”

USICEF, managed by Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), was founded in 2017 in partnership with the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, OPIC, IREDA, and other U.S. based organizations. It aims to drive access to energy in underserved regions of India by supporting early-stage development of distributed solar power projects. It utilizes public and philanthropic funds to catalyze private investment into distributed clean energy in India.

PFS stated that it was looking at new distributed solar power projects being implemented by reputed developers under various schemes, and it has partnered with USICEF to leverage these funds for viable investment-ready distributed solar projects in India.

PFS claims to have processed and sanctioned three distributed solar power projects with an aggregate debt amount of ₹2.42 billion ($35 million), of which approximately ₹390 million ($5.61 million) is outstanding on the books.

According to Mercom Q4 and Annual 2018 India Solar Market Quarterly Update investments in the Indian solar sector in 2018 totaled over $9.84 billion which was 15 percent lower when compared $11.54 billion (~₹819 billion) in investments made in the previous year.

Shaurya is a staff reporter at MercomIndia.com with experience working in the Indian solar energy industry for the past four years in various roles. Prior to joining Mercom, Shaurya worked with a renewable energy developer and a consulting company. Shaurya holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Management from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom.