candi solar
BIO has granted a USD 5 M loan to candi solar, a company installing, owning and operating solar production plants and selling electricity to clients in India and South Africa.
Amount
€ 4,074,650.00
Type of investment
Debt
Development impacts
- Access to basic services & goods
- Fight against climate change and preservation of natural resources
Beneficiary locations
Investment field
Infrastructure
Activity
candi’s core strategy is to serve SMEs that need reliable and affordable energy but prefer to focus their resources on their core business and outsource the financing and management of a solar plant.
Solar plants are generally installed on rooftop and range from 20KWp to average sizes 3-4MWp with an average of 350KWp. To unlock this market overlooked by most players, candi ambitions to reach high volumes, compress transaction costs, leverage its fundraising expertise and rely on state-of-the-art proprietary credit analysis and monitoring tools to minimize risks.
As of December 2021, candi solar group installed and owns 11MWp of operational solar plants, with 20+ different offtakers.
In addition to BIOs investment, responsAbility cofinanced USD 5 M.
Development impacts
-
Access to basic services & goods
Targeted clients are all connected to the grid. However, as the grid is subject to power outages and grid price fluctuations (especially in India), a solar installation allows candi’s clients to diversify part of their energy supply, improve reliability and chose to pay a lower electricity price to candi, avoiding the uncertainty of potential grid price evolutions.
-
Fight against climate change and preservation of natural resources
BIO’s funding will allow candi to increase the capacity by around 10MWp of clean power thereby reducing the client-SMEs energy dependency on the national grids and avoiding GHG Emissions of 2,422 t. CO2 (Indian and South African electricity generation is mostly fossil fuels-based).
E&S Impact
BIO will support candi solar in:
- improving and developing its processes and tools (e.g. internal audits and EPC reporting templates);
- increasing E&S requirements towards contractors by adding clauses on working conditions, EHS reporting and responsible supply chain; and
- setting up a responsible supply chain process to assess & minimise the risk of solar panels & polysilicon made by forced labour from the Xinjiang province, China
Current situation
Thanks to the support of other EDFI, candi has already developed an ESG Policy that identifies the main ESG risks, supported by a full set of EHS procedures. Moreover, the company has recently set up an ESG committee.
Risks related to land acquisition, biodiversity and reputational risks are currently managed via candi’s “Approach to Client ESG risks” including due diligence checks for high-risk sectors and exclusion lists.
Risk Category: B
Read impact and news about this project
News
Investment in candi solar
22-02-2022
responsAbility Investments, the Swiss impact investment manager, and BIO, the Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries, have provided a USD 10 million equivalent multi-currency loan to candi solar, a visionary financial and clean energy platform through which distributed energy infrastructure in emerging markets can be built at scale.
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Debt
