Total Eren and EDF Renouvelables, two world leaders in renewable energy, this week announced that EDEN Renewables India (“EDEN”), their equally owned joint venture dedicated to large-scale Indian solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, has successfully secured Financial Close for its 450 MWp[1] SECI III solar PV project, with a group of three major international banks.

The SECI III project has been successfully financed through a green limited recourse project term loan of USD 165M provided by DBS Bank Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (Singapore Branch).

For this transaction, EDEN was advised by Herbert Smith Freehills and L&L Partners Law Offices as legal advisors, and Chatham Financial Europe as hedge benchmark advisor.

The project, currently under construction in Rajasthan, Northern India, was awarded to EDEN within the context of a tender launched by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), following which EDEN signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with SECI in June 2019. The project’s commissioning is expected towards the first half of 2021.

Sudhir Verma, CEO of EDEN Renewables India, said: 
“I am very pleased that we have successfully reached the Financial Close of our SECI III Solar Farm. This is one more success for EDEN and a significant moment for the development of renewable energy in India. At EDEN, we are eager to provide our expertise in high scale solar PV farms to contribute to a low carbon environment in India, in line with the country’s objective to achieve 40 % of non-fossil fuel generation by 2030.”

Laurence Juin, Chief Financial Officer of Total Eren, commented: 
“This successful Financial Close reflects the ongoing interest and trust of the lenders in the Indian renewable energy market and its promising prospects. By partnering today with such a high-quality financial consortium, we look forward to pursuing our project’s construction along with our partner EDF Renewables and through our joint-venture EDEN Renewables India, which plays a key role in achieving our local ambitions and has positioned itself in the Top 3 of Indian solar tender winners during the first semester of 2020[2]. The Indian renewable energy market offers a high growth potential and we are determined to provide an electricity which is both sustainable and low carbon, in line with the Indian Government’s objective to increase the part of renewables in India.”

Frédéric Belloy, Executive Vice President International Operations at EDF Renewables, stated: 
“We are very pleased to achieve this new breakthrough for our SECI III project, with our partner Total Eren through our joint venture EDEN Renewables India that is amongst the leaders in the Indian solar market. The secured financing carried out together with the financial partners is a major step in the delivery of our 450 MWp project. We are now fully mobilized towards its completion. SECI III, as well as our recent successes representing 1,300 MWp new projects, demonstrate EDF Renewables’ willingness to support India to reach its great ambition for renewables energy.”

[1] 300 MWac
[2] BloombergNEF, September 2020

KeyFacts Energy: EDF Renewables India country profile