Shapoorji Pallonji To Liquidate Solar PPAs

The Shapoorji Pallonji group is seeking buyers for 300-350 megawatts (MW) of planned solar projects to deleverage balance sheet and solve liquidity issues. Brookfield is one of the investors that has evinced interest in these PPAs as they are also exploring greenfield development of renewable projects. Group companies had won these projects in auctions by the Solar Energy Corp. of India Ltd (SECI) and have tied up power purchase pacts, but are yet to start work on them. While Shapoorji wants to sell the ownership rights, they would like to retain the EPC contract to build these projects. Shapoorji’s liquidity issues surfaced last year, when the group sought an extension in repayment of dues worth around ?2,644 crore to Sterling and Wilson Solar Ltd, a group firm, blaming “significant and rapid deterioration in the credit markets following the fallout of defaults at IL&FS. The group also recently sold 317MW of operational solar projects in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu to private equity investor KKR for ?1,554 crore.