SoftBank, which owns one of Japan’s biggest mobile carriers and is the largest shareholder in Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba, will have majority control in the three-way joint venture company, SBG Cleantech, with Bharti and Foxconn as minority stakeholders.
“Softbank will take lead and responsibility to make 20GW as a minimum commitment in <g data-gr-id="29">solar</g> space in India. In economic terms grossly $20 billion will be the scale of investment, probably it could be one of largest investment by a foreign company in India,” Softbank Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son told reporters here. <g data-gr-id="27">Government</g> this month raised the solar power generation capacity addition target by five times to 100 gigawatts by 2022 under the National Solar Mission (NSM).
“It is a joint venture project so $20 billion is not Softbank portion only. I would like to see this happening in next 10 years but how fast we would be able to accelerate will depend on local and central government and availability of land,” he said, adding that it would take two years for the project to start once all clearances and land is <g data-gr-id="25">alloted</g>. Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal said SBG Cleantech Ltd will be headed by Manoj Kohli as its Executive <g data-gr-id="32">Chairman,</g> while Raman Nanda will be the Chief Executive Officer. It will be headquartered in New Delhi.
The Japanese telecom and Internet major SoftBank Corp had in 2011 set up SB Energy Corp to develop clean energy projects following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. SoftBank, which has stakes in more than 1,000 companies the world over, has invested $1 billion in India in past nine months out of the $10 billion planned investment in Asia’s <g data-gr-id="20">third largest</g> economy in 10 years.
SBG Cleantech will be a harbinger of solar and wind energy in the country and intends to participate in the 2015-16 round of solar power plant tenders under the NSM and state-specific solar programmes.
SoftBank’s Chairman & CEO meets PM
Japanese telecommunication major SoftBank’s Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son on Monday called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expressed interest in investing in India’s renewable energy sector. He was accompanied by Chairman of Bharti Enterprises Sunil Bharti Mittal and Senior MD of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation Tadashi Maeda. “They expressed keenness to invest in the renewable energy sector in India as part of the ‘Make in India’ initiative,” the Prime Minister’s Office later said in a release. <g data-gr-id="57">Energy hungry</g> India is keen to extensively develop its renewable energy sector. Last week, the government had raised the solar power generation capacity addition target by five times to 1,00,000 MW by 2022, which will entail an investment of around Rs 6 lakh crore.