IndiGrid, India’s power sector infrastructure investment trust, is partnering with British International Investment (BII) and the Norwegian Climate Investment Fund, managed by NorFund, to create the joint venture EnerGrid. Through the partnership, the funds will invest $300m to development battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in India.
The BII is the UK government’s development finance institution and is managed by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. NorFund is the Norwegian equivalent and is owned and managed through the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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It is projected that India will require an additional 170,000 circuit kilometers of transmission lines and 47GW of BESS capacity in the next eight years to enable the country to grow its energy production capacity.
Each of the investment funds contributed $100m to reach the $300m figure, which IndiGrid says will allow EnerGrid to pursue about $1.2b worth of projects in the future.
The deal was signed on the sidelines of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The conference’s leadership is encouraging partners to sign a pledge that aims to deploy 1.5TW of energy storage by 2030.
“After commercial operations start, the projects will be fully acquired by IndiGrid at a pre-agreed enterprise value,” according to IndiGrid’s chief executive officer Harsh Shah.
The BII’s head of infrastructure for Asia Rohit Anand said that the joint venture, EnergyGrid, would be in charge of the bidding, construction and execution processes. Once the projects are completed and operational, they will be fully acquired by IndiGrid.
India needs around $109b of investment to reach its energy transition goals.
