IAC Webinar on Investment Opportunities in India’s Renewable Energy Sector, April 15, 2020, New Delhi

On April 15, IAC organized a webinar along with MNRE, USAID and USISPF featuring Secretary Anand Kumar of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy; and IAC members Sumant Sinha, founder and CEO of ReNew Power; and Georges Antoun, Chief Commercial Officer of First Solar. In a discussion moderated by USISPF Senior Vice President Nolty Theriot, they discussed the impact COVID-19 has had on the renewable energy sector in India, supportive actions taken by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and opportunities for renewable energy growth.

The event was attended by over 250 participants from the renewables and grid integration sector including senior representatives from US and Indian Government, and Corporate sector. The event was highly successful and widely reported on social media.

The key takeways from webinar were as follows:

• The impact of COVID19 will be felt by Discoms as they have been hard hit with the suspension of industrial and commercial operations, which in turn could impact the RE generators and developers. Discoms, whose overall fiscal health has been poor, need more support than ever from state and central governments.
• There is discussion regarding the amendment of the Electricity Act, 2003, that would benefit the renewable energy industry. These Amendments will include, amongst others, many industry suggestions such as making Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) stronger than ever before. Once signed, PPAs would be sacrosanct. PPAs will also have well-defined force majeure clauses. These steps are aimed to make India an attractive destination for investments in RE sector – both from developers and manufacturing perspectives.
• The proposed amendments of Electricity Act 2003 is open for comments, feedback and inputs from the industry.
• MNRE is working on an Alternate Investment Fund (AIF) with IREDA to help with the fiscal health of discoms, which will consequentially benefit the developers and their investors as well.
• India is increasingly deploying more RE projects, as opposed to ‘vanilla solar’ or ‘vanilla wind’. This move is making RE power more attractive for discoms and at the same time ensuring consistency of power, making RE more competitive with conventional power.
• There is a key interest amongst industry and GOI is to make India into a hub of RE technology manufacturing, so that it can cater to its domestic demand but also export to other countries.