BII and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners launch USD 300 Million Renewable Energy Platform in India

British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor, and Danish global fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) through its Growth Markets Fund II (GMF II), has announced the launch of North Star, a USD 300 million renewable energy platform in India to support the country’s clean energy transition. 

BII and CIP will each commit up to USD 150 million, with the platform designed to address the funding gap required to build and scale renewable projects in India and crowd in additional private capital.

North Star will invest across solar, wind and hybrid renewable energy as well as storage projects, which are expected to generate more than 4 million MWh of clean energy annually and avoid about 4 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year.

This is the first investment made through British Climate Partners (BCP), a Euro 1.1 billion climate finance initiative launched by BII last month as part of its new five-year strategy. BCP is designed to mobilise large-scale institutional capital into climate solutions across fast-growing and coal-dependent economies in Asia including India, as well as the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other South-East Asian countries. 

India has set a target of 500GW of installed renewable energy capacity by 2030 and net-zero by 2070.  However, it faces a significant climate financing gap of at least USD 160 billion a year until 2030. This combination of scale, ambition and unmet financing needs led to India being selected as the first investment market under BCP.

Although renewable energy tenders have expanded rapidly in India, many developers lack the development capacity and capital required to bring projects through to construction and operation. North Star is specifically designed to address these constraints and accelerate projects to scale, while mobilising more private investment. 

BII has a proven track record in investing to support India’s green transition. In 2018, BII invested USD 100m to launch Ayana, a renewable generation platform. The company attracted hundreds of millions of dollars of private capital before being sold last year for an enterprise value of USD 2.3 billion.

Rohit Anand, MD and Head of Asia Infrastructure, BII, said, “British Climate Partners is about mobilising institutional capital at scale to accelerate the energy transition in developing Asian economies, including India, where the need and opportunity are greatest. Building on BII’s experience in both energy investing and India, the launch of North Star reflects the country’s strong renewable growth, supportive policy momentum and the role catalytic capital can play in delivering clean power at pace.”

Peter Jannik Sjøntoft, Partner in CIP's Growth Markets Funds, stated, “India is one of the most important renewable energy markets globally. Partnering with British International Investment allows us to build on our existing India investments and combine deep local insight with global investment expertise to accelerate project delivery and support the build-out of renewable energy infrastructure at scale.”