ACME Solar plans up to ₹35,000 cr capex by 2027

The company aims to increase its energy portfolio to 7 gigawatts (GW) by 2027 from the current 2.5 GW, with a focus on round-the-clock (RTC) renewable energy projects, Dhingra said in an interview.

Capex push

“Basically, our capex has been divided into two phases. Until 2026, ₹17,000 crore and ₹15,000-18,000 crore in the year after that,” Dhingra said. “We will increase from our current operational capacity 2.5 GW to 5 GW by 2026 through phase-1 capex, and to 7 GW by 2027 through phase-2 capex.”

Of the planned 7 GW capacity, about 50% would be firm and dispatchable renewable energy (FDRE) and hybrid projects, which are key for round-the-clock energy supply with a mix of solar, wind and storage capacities, he said. The rest would largely comprise vanilla solar projects, and standalone wind energy projects would stand at about 2%.

“As far as even FDRE and hybrid is concerned, hybrid regulatory requirement is to put one-third wind. So, we will do that. But hybrid is a very small proportion of our portfolio. FDRE is a larger proportion. We have around 750 MW of hybrid projects and around 2500 MW of FDRE projects in the pipeline,” he added.

Its current operational capacity of 2.5 GW comprises largely vanilla solar projects

Of the company’s ambitious capex plan, 75-80% would be funded through debt and the rest 20-25% would be equity funding, including internal accruals, he said. “So essentially, it should be around ₹6,000-7,000 crore equity requirement.”

The company, which raised ₹2,900 crore in its initial public offering in November, is well-capitalized for the first phase of investments with loan sanctions of about ₹16,000-17,000 crore already in place.

“We have got funding for everything we need to do till … end of 2026. We have got around ₹16,000-17,000 crore debt sanctions already for the projects which we need to build in the next year. Even some debts for 2027 are already in place as well,” Dhingra said.

“All of the equity is in place for next year and the year after also. Our equity sources are multiple. One is this primary capital we have raised through IPO in November 2024.”

Dhingra added that the construction margins and cash flows from operational projects would also be key components of its planned capex.

Financial snapshot

ACME Solar’s net debt currently stands at about ₹6,800 crore, while another ₹1,900 is cash reserves, taking gross debt to about ₹8,700 crore. In the past six months, the company has refinanced debt of about ₹5,500 crore.

For the third quarter ended December, the company reported a consolidated net profit of ₹112 crore, more than double the profit reported a year earlier. Its total revenue was ₹401 crore, up 10% year-on-year.

Shares of ACME Solar, which listed at ₹259 on 13 November 2024, closed at ₹202.70 on Friday (21 March), with a market capitalization of ₹12,265 crore.