What is India’s ReNew Power?

Based in Haryana, India and founded in 2011, ReNew Power is the brainchild of Sumant Sinha who is an entrepreneur in the renewable energy sector.

Although it is at the start-up level, the company has raised more than $1 billion of funds in 2019 itself. Currently, the company hold the largest portion of wind and solar power capacity of 5,600 Mw in India. In fact, India has a renewable power capacity of 118 GW, the fifth-highest in the world. The government wants that to hit 500 GW by 2030.

ReNew Power is considered one of the top unicorns of India. A unicorn company is a private company which has a valuation of over $1 billion. It is fair to assume that India’s direction towards renewable power energy is generating favourable results.

By the end of June, the company succeeded in generating $300 million from its investors. The said investors are Goldman Sachs, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board that contributed $100 million each. It also had plans for an Initial Public Offering but then decided to ditch the idea.

It is estimated that the demand for more energy in India will be more than doubled by 2040 and the founder Sinha believes that they have to utilize coal to a great extent in order to generate energy in the years to come.

“Irrespective of how rapidly we set up new solar plants, you will always have a gap in which you will need coal to play a bigger role,” Sumant Sinha said.

(Reference: CNN Business, Business Standard, CB Insights, Wikipedia, ReNew Power Limited)
(Image source: Pradeep Gaur/Mint)