EnergyPro Asset Management Ltd

India is facing the challenge of meeting an increasing demand for cooling in a sustainable way. There is a rapidly increasing demand for cooling in buildings and in the cold chain for food and medicines etc which would lead to an eight fold increase in cooling needs by 2037/38 compared to 2017/18.

Meeting this increased demand with conventional cooling technologies such as standard room air conditioners would lead to an unsustainable demand for power and with associated carbon emissions. The India Cooling Action Plan, the first of its type in the world, estimates that the additional room air conditioners could add 150 GW of peak power demand, something that it is impossible financially or environmentally using conventional, fossil fuel power stations. Ensuring the growth in cooling demand is met as sustainably as possible is a national priority for India and a global priority for mitigating climate change.

Through its UK based joint venture with EnergyPro Asset Management Ltd (EPAM), EESL EnergyPro Assets Ltd, EESL acquired Edina, a leading UK provider of combined heat and power and distributed generation solutions in March 2018 for £55m. Edina undertakes projects in the UK, Ireland and Australia. One of its areas of expertise is trigeneration, the generation of power, heat and cold in one unit. EESL saw the potential for trigeneration in India to meet the cooling loads of large buildings and factories in a more sustainable way using the expanding natural gas network. EESL has developed a fully financed, pay as you save, offering for trigeneration in India and is now delivering the first projects using Edina’s equipment and knowhow.

The JV between EnergyPro and EESL, and the subsequent acquisition of Edina represents a unique approach to addressing India’s need for more sustainable energy solutions. It involved bringing together two very different organisations, one a UK SME, and one an Indian government entity, which have in common the purpose of scaling up investment in energy efficient solutions. By combining their expertise and resources through the JV they were able to identify the need in India, identify a solution using a UK company and know how, execute a transaction and then develop and roll-out a service in India directly addressing the need.

The main direct impact of this initiative is only now beginning to be seen as these large, financed trigeneration projects, take time to develop and mature. EESL has developed a pipeline of trigeneration projects of several hundred MW in India and when these are delivered the environmental benefits from displacing higher carbon electricity from the grid will be significant. The projects will also provide lower running costs for the buildings, in some cases hospitals, which will free up the organisations resources for its core activities. In addition to these benefits there has, and continues to be, a programme of capacity building to build skills in India to develop and design trigeneration projects. For Edina in the UK the project has brought with it a new long-term owner who has invested in the company and the management team, as well as a new market in India.

In this way, Edina has supported India’s development towards SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Read more: https://www.edina.eu/news/epal-edina-go-for-growth-in-uk-india/