Acme Solar NSM

completed

ASEPL is an independent power producer which builds, owns and operates small and medium-scale solar power plants in India. It is promoted by the ACME Group, EDF Energies Nouvelles and EREN S.A for setting up solar power plants. The company has an operational 25 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project in Madhya Pradesh and another 25 MW solar PV project is under development in Odisha. The company plans to sign the engineering, procurement and construction (“EPC”) agreement and operations and maintenance (“O&M”) agreements for the project with Acme Cleantech Solutions Limited.IFC extended a $ 50 million debt facility to ASEPL (IFC project #32497) to part finance selected solar photovoltaic power projects in ASEPL’s pipeline. As a part of this facility IFC financed the Acme Solar Madhya Pradesh Private Limited (“Acme MP”) in April, 2013. The remaining part of this facility ($34 million) is being proposed to be used for financing a 100 MW solar PV plant (the “project”) in Bari Seer village of Bap Tehsil of Jodhpur district in the state of Rajasthan, India. The planned 100 MW capacity will be developed under five different subsidiary companies (Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) each having a capacity of 20 MW. All these SPVs are fully owned subsidiaries of ASEPL. The project sites are located approximately 170 km from Jodhpur town and nearly 2 km from the nearest villages (Nawagaon and Bari Seer). The site setting is rural and the larger area has more than 300 MW of solar power generation capacity in the region (~10-20 kms radius). The direct current (DC) power from the solar panels will be sent to an inverter to convert the DC power into alternate current (AC) power which will be locally pooled before being fed into the utility power grid system. The power generated from the proposed solar power plant shall be evacuated through a double circuit 132 kV transmission line to Bari Seer Grid Substation of Rajasthan Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (RVPNL) located approximately 4 km from the project site. The company has signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Solar Energy Corporation of India (“SECI”) for 25 years. The total project cost is estimated at $ 136.07 million with a proposed IFC loan of $ 34 million for IFC’s own account. IFC will also be providing a B-loan. The construction phase is expected to start in October 2014 and expected to last for 4-6 months. The project is planned for commissioning by mid-April 2015.The project site is located in revenue/government land belonging to Bari Seer village of Bap tehsil of Jodhpur district. The total land area required for the project is around 330 hectares spread over three contiguous land parcels, two of which are separated by a public road and include land for access roads, internal lines, an office/administrative building and a maintenance area. Construction worker camps (2-3) will be located within the project site area. The proposed route of the transmission line predominantly passes through the project area and revenue lands belonging to Bari Seer village.