Belgian retail giant Colruyt Group is gearing up to make a big splash in the renewable energy space in India and has lined up an investment of around Rs 800-1,000 crore for the next two years.
Colruyt already has 1.5 GW of installed capacity of wind energy in Belgium. It plans to bring that capability and expertise to India and in next one to two years, they will invest anywhere between Rs 800 – Rs1,000 crore. And also plan to become an independent power producer (IPP) and are looking at capacities of around 100 to 150 MW in the first two years in India.
The group plans to set up a separate entity for it’s India renewable energy venture, which will be headquartered in Hyderabad. The company is already working on aspects like talent acquisition and office space. The company is also open to setting up solar projects but the first few projects will be in the wind energy space and will be set up in the southern part of the country.
Each wind project will have the capacity of around 30 to 50 MW. In the first few projects, the group plans to outsource the engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) part to larger players. Currently there are 435 employees working at the centre and expects the headcount to grow by 10-15% in the next year.