Sembcorp walks the ‘green’ talk with sale of Indian coal power assets

UTILITIES giant Sembcorp Industries (SCI) has walked an extra mile on its “green” talk with the recently announced plan to sell a 100 per cent stake in one of India’s largest independent power producers, Sembcorp Energy India (SEIL).

This sale involving 2 “supercritical” coal-fired plants in India, totalling 2.6GW, for S$2.1 billion to Oman’s Tanweer Infrastructure is quite possibly Sembcorp’s most deliberate and decisive move since it unveiled a brown-to-green transformation roadmap in May 2021 and pledged to no longer invest in new coal-fired energy assets.

A potential sale of its conventional energy assets, apart from adding renewable energy projects to its stable, has always been on the table for Sembcorp, which has armed itself with measurable and clear goals to transform its massive energy portfolio. The sale of fossil-fuel powered plants, however, is trickier than the long game of clean energy, as many of the markets it operates in still chiefly rely on traditional sources to power energy needs.