'Market is frothy as a lot of money chases a few assets'

The UK-based private equity firm Actis is building its third renewable energy platform in India, BluPine Energy, after setting up and selling Ostro Energy and Sprng Energy in the past. Actis will deploy $800 million to grow BluPine and is taking a different approach than Ostro and Sprng.

- Aman Malik

In an interview with VCCircle, BluPine CEO Neerav Nanavaty talks about the company's expansion plan and implementation challenges. He also explains why he thinks the renewable energy industry in India will see more consolidation activity and why tariffs for solar and wind projects should be allowed to increase. Edited excerpts:

What is BluPine's actual capacity? What is the solar-wind mix?

We have an operational portfolio of 400MW. Besides that, we have a clear visibility of PPAs (power purchase agreements) that have been won and signed. On the solar side, we've 360MW of AC capacity. So, 1.25 times that is the DC peak capacity. We have 300MW wind capacity as well. All these PPAs are in Gujarat. That's on the utility scale.

On the C&I (commercial and industrial) scale, we have another 100MW of projects that are in advanced development. We are in negotiations on PPAs in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, with commercial offtakers.

Actis says it is looking at 4GW over the next 4-5 years. Is that achievable given it is 10x where you are currently?

Yes, from an operating portfolio standpoint, it is 10 times, but given that we have close to IGW in construction, that makes it roughly three times. If we split the business plan, in solar greenfield, we will end up at close to 1.5GW, wind will be between 500-700MW, C&I would be 750MW and the rest will be hybrid and some form of M&A.