Indian Banks, Financial Institutions To Fund 76 GW Of Renewable Energy Projects

Indian banks and financial institutions are gearing up to assist the government to achieve the ambitious renewable energy target of 175 GW by March 2022.

The Minister for New & Renewable Energy, Power and Coal recently shared the details of financial commitments made by banks and financial institutions to fund renewable energy projects. These banks had first made commitments last year during the inaugural renewable energy investors summit organised by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

Minister Piyush Goyal informed the Parliament that the government has received funding commitments for 76,352 MW of renewable energy capacity with a total outlay of Rs 382,255 crore over the next five years.

The commitments have been made by 24 public sector banks, 8 private sector banks, 4 public sector and 2 private sector financial institutions.

The Minister also informed that since these commitments were made, funding has been approved for projects with 25,318 MW capacity. A total of Rs 63,473 crore has been sanctioned and Rs 26,105 crore has been released. These figures are up to 31 December 2015.

These funding agencies are critical to the achievement of the massive capacity addition targets announced by the Indian Government. Given the large sums of non-performing assets on the books of several Indian banks, they are now looking at newer ways to raise funds to fulfil their commitments.

Several banks, like IDBI Bank, Yes Bank, and the Indian Import-Export Bank have successfully raised millions of dollars through green bonds and several other agencies  are planning float green bonds as well.