Azure Power raises $70 mn from US Exim Bank

Helion Venture Partners-backed Azure Power has raised $70.35 million as long-term financing from Export Import Bank of the US for its solar power plant in Nagaur in Rajasthan. The funds will be used to expand the Delhi-headquartered company’s existing 5 million megawatt plant in Nagaur to 40 megawatt, making it the largest solar power plant to be developed at a single location under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission. The plant is slated to be operational by next February, said a press release.

Construction on the Nagaur plant was commissioned last December and is being built over 346 acres of wasteland. Once fully operational, it expects to reduce carbon emissions worth 66,000 metric tonne per year. In July last year, the company had tied up $16 million in long-term financing with Exim Bank for the same plant.

In November, the company had announced plans to invest up to Rs 1,000 crore ($181 million) aimed at adding an installed power generation capacity of 110 megawatt in the states of Gujarat, Karnataka and Rajasthan. The latest Exim Bank deal is part of the investment roadmap.

The company, founded in 2007 by serial entrepreneur Inderpreet Wadhwa, set up its first power plant in Awan, Punjab, in December 2009 with a capacity of 2 megawatt. It is contracted to sell power to the Punjab government for 25 years at Rs 8.93 per kilowatt. The 2 megawatt plant was set up at an investment of about Rs 19 crore. Since then it has also installed a 10 megawatt plant in Gujarat. By 2015, the company aims to have an installed capacity of 100 megawatt.

Wadhwa raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding from Bangalore-based Helion Venture Partners and Foundation Capital in late 2008. In early 2010, the company raised $10 million in quasi-equity funding from International Finance Corporation for the expansion of the Awan project in Punjab and the setting up of a 8 megawatt plant in Gujarat.

Image Courtesy: Azure Power