Adani Green Energy has secured buyers for the entire 8 gigawatts of green power projects it won in a tender more than three years ago, reaching a milestone in its plan to expand generation capacity by more than five-fold by the end of the decade. 

The green energy arm of billionaire Gautam Adani’s coal-to-airports conglomerate signed a 25-year contract with Solar Energy Corp of India, or Seci, for the remaining 1.8 gigawatts, it said on Monday (Dec 25). State-run Seci conducted the auction and is the intermediary between the project developer and buyers of electricity.

The deal indicates a shift among state power retailers to sign long-term offtake contracts after a post-pandemic economic recovery, with extreme weather conditions further boosting electricity demand in the country. The utilities had earlier shunned long-term contracts amid sluggish demand, waiting for prices to drop in project auctions.  

Seci awarded the project to Adani in June 2020 in an auction that combined solar power generation and equipment manufacturing. Rival Azure Power Global had won bids for building 4 gigawatts of solar power plants. 

Adani Green has 8.4 gigawatts of operating renewables portfolio and plans to invest US$22 billion to expand the capacity to 45 gigawatts by 2030. With the latest deal, the company has offtake agreements for 19.8 gigawatts of projects, it said Monday. BLOOMBERG