IFC To Lend $14M To Spanish Abengoa?s Indian Concentrating Solar Power Plant

The greenfield project is to construct a steel fabrication plant near Vadodara in the state of Gujarat, with an annual capacity of 25,000 tons. The plant will manufacture steel structures for transmission & distribution (T&D) projects and metallic support structures for the cylindrical parabolic solar collectors (CPC) and heliostats in concentrated solar power (CSP) projects that will be developed globally, including in India and neighboring countries.

Commenced in 1941, Abengoa provides technology solutions for sustainability in the energy and environment sectors, generating energy from the sun, producing bio-fuels, desalinating sea water and recycling industrial waste. The group is involved in five core businesses including solar, Bio-energy, environmental, IT and Engineering & construction.

IFC, the private investment arm of the World Bank, is one of the more prolific institutional investors in the country through a mix of equity and debt finance transactions. In another debt deal, it may lend around $26 million in to three new solar projects being developed by Mahindra Solar One, a 26:74 joint venture between the Mahindra Group and Kiran Energy, a private equity backed firm.

Over the last one week it has also committed over $200 million in three debt cum equity deals. These include debt funding of up to $65 million to Warburg Pincus-backed off-highway tyre manufacturer Alliance Tire Group, $130 million ($40 million in equity and $90 million in debt) in INOX Renewables Ltd, a subsidiary of Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd that runs its wind power generation business, besides $9 million (debt + equity) in Bangalore-based RenewGen Enviro Ventures India Pvt Ltd.

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