Asian Development Bank, Punjab National Bank to finance solar rooftop projects

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Tuesday signed a financing loan worth USD 100 million, to be guaranteed by the Government of India, in order to finance large solar rooftop systems on industrial and commercial buildings throughout India.

The PNB will use the ADB?s funds to sanction loans to various developers and end users to install rooftop solar systems.

This is the first tranche loan of the USD 500 million multi-tranche finance facility Solar Rooftop Investment Program (SRIP) approved by the ADB in 2016. The financing includes USD 330 million from ADB?s ordinary capital resources and USD 170 million from the multi-donor Clean Technology Fund (CTF) administered by the ADB.

The first tranche loan of USD 100 million would be financed entirely from the CTF.

?With a sharp drop in the price of solar panels, India has a huge potential to expand its use of solar rooftop technologies. The program will contribute to the government?s plans to increase solar power generation capacity, and also help India meet the carbon emission reduction target in line with its commitment at the recent global climate change agreement,? said Kenichi Yokoyama, ADB Country Director in India, who signed the loan on behalf of the ADB.

India?s solar rooftop market is expanding fast with an estimated total capacity potential of 124GW. Aiming to increase the country?s solar rooftop capacity by 40 GW in 2022, Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance signed the guarantee agreement on behalf of the Centre.

Taking a step towards promoting solar energy as an affordable and sustainable energy solution, H.K. Parikh, General Manager, PNB signed the agreement representing the bank.

The entire Solar Rooftop Investment Program is estimated to cost around USD one billion, inclusive of the ADB?s USD 500 million funding, and the projects financed under the program will install solar rooftop system of around one GW capacity. This will contribute to the climate change goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 11 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the typical 25-year lifetime of rooftop solar systems.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)