IndiaCSR News Network

NEW DELHI: The Partnership to Advance Clean Energy – Deployment Technical Assistance Program (PACE-D TA Program) is a five year program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Power and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The core objective of this program is to help India’s transition to a low carbon economy.

As part of this program, USAID is working with the Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA) to launch a state level off-grid fund called the “Distributed Renewable Energy – Community Fund”. This fund will support the financing of pilot programs to provide electricity to villages using clean sources of power such as solar and wind energy. At present, nearly 30 percent of the villages in Chhattisgarh do not have access to the grid and this is largely due to limited financing available for rural energy access. The proposed fund aims to address this challenge.

Stakeholder Consultation Workshop

CREDA and USAID are organizing a consultation workshop on January 5, 2015 at Hotel Taj Gateway, Raipur to a) announce the MOU between USAID and CREDA and b) discuss the structure of the proposed fund with leading corporates in the state. The activities under the MOU will help more villages get access to clean energy. Dignitaries including S K Shukla (Chief Executive Officer, CREDA) and Colin Dreizin (Director, Clean Energy and Environment Office, USAID/India), and stakeholders from leading corporate houses, policy makers, investors and project developers will participate in the workshop.

Date: January 5, 2015

Time: 9.30 am – 1 pm, followed by lunch

Venue: The Gateway Hotel, GE Road, Behind Magneto Mall, Raipur

About the Off-grid Fund

While the Government of India has announced several programs focused on energy access via distributed renewable energy systems, high impact on the ground can be achieved by the active involvement of the corporate sector. As per the Schedule VII of the Company’s Act, 2013, companies with net worth greater than INR 500 Crore or with a turnover greater than INR 1,000 Crore or profits greater than INR 5 Crore need to contribute two percent of their average net profit (PBT) over the past three years for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) based activities. At present, there are limited programs that can use the CSR funds from corporates, in compliance with the CSR guidelines, and create high quality, measurable sustainability impacts.

The proposed fund, housed within CREDA, will draw CSR contributions to create community assets focused on off-grid. It will provide equity as well as soft project finance (debt, mezzanine capital, etc.) to developers, entrepreneurs and product developers while attracting mainstream lenders and private investors to invest in the supported clean energy projects. These projects will aim to provide energy access, deliver co-benefits such as employment, income generation, health, education, sanitation, drinking water, irrigation, ease/e-governance, etc.