Areva SA (CEI), the world's largest producer of nuclear equipment, may seek loans to back 3 billion euros ($4.2 billion) of renewable energy projects this year, the head of the company's renewable unit said today.
Europe's second-largest developer of offshore wind projects is "on track" to exceed a record set in 2010, when it arranged $3 billion of financing for clean-energy projects, mostly in offshore wind, Anil Srivastava, chief executive of Areva Renewables, said in an interview in New Delhi today.
The Paris-based company has bid to build its first hybrid solar plants in India at a Siemens AG (SIE) facility in Madhya Pradesh state and another site operated by a private coal operator in Gujarat state, Srivastava added. Hybrid plants produce power from a combination of fossil fuels and solar energy, helping to reduce emissions and lower consumption of natural gas and coal.
Areva operates a pilot 3-megawatt solar-coal hybrid plant in Liddell, Australia. India, along with South Africa, is among the largest potential markets in the world for such technology, Srivastava said after attending the Euromoney Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New Delhi.
