Private equity firm Actis has agreed to sell its Sprng Energy renewables platform to energy major Shell for US$1.55 billion.
Established in 2017 to provide solar and wind power in India with an initial asset of 330MWp, Sprng’s current portfolio stands at 2.9GWp while the company has a further 7.5GWp of projects in the pipeline.
The deal will treble Shell’s actual renewable capacity in operation and will better position the company in a market where the Indian government has targeted to produce 500GW of renewable energy by 2030.
Sprng was part of the Actis Energy 4 fund investment, and in October 2021 Actis announced its latest fund, Actis Energy 5, with US$6 billion of investable capital.
The energy arm of Actis had so far invested in more than 70 renewable projects globally with a power generation capacity of 11GW.
Sanjiv Aggarwal, partner at Actis, said: “Sprng is a best-in-class energy platform delivering clean, reliable power to millions of people across India. We remain committed to the Indian market and its ecological transition, and we hope to deploy a further US$1 billion in the region by the end of 2026.”
The transaction is expected to close later this year.
In January 2022, Shell acquired 100% of PV project developer Solar-Konzept Italia, increasing its solar development pipeline in Italy to 2GW.