State Bank of India (SBI) on Friday announced financing of 100 MW rooftop solar projects worth Rs 400 crore for private developers under a World Bank programme.
“SBI has availed loan of $625 million from World Bank for on-lending to viable Grid-Connected Rooftop Solar PV (GRPV) projects undertaken by private developers/aggregators and end-users, for installation of rooftop solar systems on the rooftops of commercial, institutional and industrial buildings,” SBI and World Bank said in a joint statement.
Developers that the SBI will be financing under this programme include Azure Power, Amplus, and Cleanmax, among others. The capacity of the projects and programmes financed range from 25kWp to 16MW, the statement said.
With World Bank funded capacity development programme, SBI is making efforts to expand and incentivise the market for rooftop solar power by way of low cost financing. Financing is being provided to those with sound technical capacity, relevant experience, and creditworthiness, meeting SBI standards, it said. Against the normal lending rate of 11-12%, the SBI is financing the projects at a rate which is up to 3.5 percentage point less because the bank is able to leverage World Bank funding at lower rates, Karnam Sekar, Deputy Managing Director, SBI, told reporters here. He also said that aided by the government policy and declining costs, rooftop solar has a potential to transform the energy sector. He added that SBI has so far provided Rs 30,000 crore finance to the clean energy projects which would eventually touch Rs 75,000 crore mark by 2022.
“Through this project and others like this, tens of millions of electricity customers will eventually be able to generate part of their own electricity needs from one of the cleanest sources of energy available,” said Riccardo Puliti, Senior Director, World Bank.
Published 02 June 2017, 20:11 IST