New Delhi: Japanese auto major Honda Motor Co Ltd has picked up a minority stake, in the range of 5-10 per cent, in homegrown OMC Power, which is in the process of building up 1 gigawatt (GW) renewable energy portfolio in India, according to industry sources.
The investment has come at a time when OMC Power is entering into a new business vertical where the company will deploy electric vehicle (EV) batteries as battery energy storage system (BESS) solution, and re-purpose the old EV batteries to support with UPS (uninterrupted power supply) like the inverters or some similar kind of applications.
As per industry sources, Honda Motor is learnt to have picked up a stake of 5-10 per cent in OMC Power and may increase its share in the future.In an interaction, OMC Power MD & CEO Rohit Chandra said both companies had been in talks for over 4 years to work out a business collaboration. It is the result of research and development, market studies, feasibility studies, and customer trials, all of which have led to this investment now.
It is also the first investment made by Honda Motor in a distributed energy platform in India, he noted."It is a win-win situation for both of us. Our partner is a leader in automobiles. It is coming up in EVs in a big way. Honda Motor will share its technical know-how, and we will provide them with the opportunities in our 1 GW journey," he said.
Honda Motor has become the third Japanese entity to invest in OMC Power, joining Mitsui & Co. and Chubu Electric Power as existing investors.While Mitsui & Co. has a 26 per cent stake, Chubu Electric Power, with a 30 per cent equity stake, is the largest Japanese investor in OMC Power, which operates across four business verticals.
Sharing a breakdown of the planned 1 GWp (gigawatt peak) or 1,000 MWp capacity, Chandra said around 600 MWp will be achieved from rooftop solarisation for customers in the healthcare space, where it has a capacity of 75 MWp.Around 200 MWp will be added in its green energy for telecom verticals, where the company supplies power to tower companies from 15 MWp capacity.
To serve rural areas, the company plans to add another 100 MWp to its smart grids, bringing its operational capacity to 10 MWp.OMC Power will add 100 MWp in solar EPC space for MSME and C&I (Commercial and Industrial) customers, starting with 5 MWp.Chandra said the fifth segment will be launched next month with the joining of two Honda Motor officials to the management team of OMC Power, who will support OMC Power with their technical expertise.All these projects will be worked out in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, and the northeastern states.
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