SunEdison may be planning to sell off a large portion of its renewable energy projects pipeline in India in order to fight the huge debt on its balance sheet.According to Indian media reports, SunEdison may be planning to offload its 1,490 MW assets in India. Initial discussions with Macquaire Capital have fallen through, and now two Indian companies have entered negotiations with the US-based project developer.SunEdison reportedly has 410 MW of operational solar power capacity India while an additional 1,000 MW capacity is at various stages of development. The company also owns 80 MW of wind energy capacity, which was acquired from another foreign developer.
The 1,000 MW in-development capacity also includes the 500 MW project SunEdison won in the Andhra Pradesh auction. The project is among the cheapest projects in India, in terms of tariff. Media outlets had earlier reported that the company is looking to sell up to 49% equity stake in the project.The latest plans to offload Indian assets come just months after the company sold 425 MW capacity to its yieldco TerraForm Global for $231 million to retire some debt from the balance sheet.SunEdison has had dealings with both the Indian companies said to be in negotiations to acquire the renewable energy assets. A subsidiary of Tata Power had last year signed a 180 MW power purchase agreement with a SunEdison project in Madhya Pradesh.
SunEdison and Adani Power had once announced plans to jointly develop India’s largest solar module manufacturing facility at a cost of $4 billion. The current status and future of the facility remains unknown.SunEdison’s financial condition seems grim, to say the least. The company is looking to sell assets as fast as it once acquired several others few years back, which, perhaps, is the root cause of all the trouble.