Petronas to focus on India for clean energy

Despite a failed attempt at finding a suitable partner, Malaysia's state-owned Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) will look at India to form a "substantial" part of its 3 gigawatt (GW) renewable energy target, a top executive said. The oil and gas giant said it will be looking at traditional renewable energy projects such as wind and solar, but will also venture into other sustainable initiatives to further expand presence in green technologies. "We're looking at (solar and wind) as part of growth, but also some other adjacent technologies such as energy storage, battery energy storage, EVs (electric vehicles), and even looking at things on the distributed energy demand side as well," Jay Mariyappan, head of new energy at Petronas, told ET. "The main aim is that we look to grow. Our overall target is three gigawatts by 2024 in terms of capacity; a substantial part of that will be within India," Mariyappan said, without specifying how much of the 3 GW will come from India.Petronas was in talks with the Tatas that would have resulted in a $2-billion investment deal into Tata Power's renewable energy-focused investment infrastructure trust (InvIT). However, the year-long negotiation was abruptly called off during its final stages in April. ET was the first to break that story. Speaking from Singapore, Mariyappan refused to comment on the failed deal, but said, "We don't comment on specific transactions, but what we can share is that we continue to explore other opportunities, where we are open to collaborate with any party with the right credentials in this field in India, as well as other parts of Asia Pacific." "So, in this regard, we welcome any party that has experience in developing large scale solar offshore and onshore wind, as well as energy storage to explore partnerships and to establish greater access to renewable energy," the Petronas executive said. 86385803In India, Petronas operates in the renewable energy sector through Amplus Solar, a leading rooftop and commercial and industrial (C&I) player. Mariyappan said that while greenfield projects through Amplus's headway into open access solar rooftop will be the main path to expansion in India, he did not rule out acquisitions like that from Acme.He declined to disclose any investment numbers the company has in mind for India. At this time, Petronas, via Amplus, will not be looking at getting into manufacturing of solar panels, Mariyappan said. Mariyappan said as of now, there isn't enough demand for hydrogen for the company to expand production in Malaysia or elsewhere, but will do so if there is enough demand.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/39noldf