Fourth Partner Energy is Paving the Way for Commercial, Industrial And Government Institutions to Adopt Renewable Energy
Fourth Partner Energy (4PEL) is a distributed solar energy developer – paving the way for commercial, industrial and government institutions to adopt renewable energy. It was founded by Vivek Subramanian, Saif Dhorajiwala and Vikas Saluguti on 12th October 2010.
They are a full-service provider of Distributed Solar energy solutions. Their offerings include CAPEX (where the consumer of electricity owns the system) and RESCO (where the investment is made by 4PEL and the consumer pays only for the energy) and Open Access or Solar farms.
They have executed over 1800 installations across 23 states of India. With a workforce of 300 employees and offices in 10 cities their current portfolio of executed projects stands at 190 MWp.
“Since all our services are offered in-house, we have greater control over our project timelines and quality of projects which together help in ensuring the lowest cost of total ownership (net of the cost of the plant and benefit derived from electricity generated). At Fourth Partner Energy, we also believe in leveraging technology to the fullest to drive operational efficiency and offer customized solutions to cater to the exact energy requirement of our customers.” says Vivek Subramanian, founder of Fourth Partner Energy.
Vivek, Saif and Vikas decided to start their own venture, before finalizing on what exactly the nature of operations should be. Months of brainstorming led to ideas being created and abandoned – a cricket-centric business, commercial "gaushala" etc. An IT-based company was not an option for these non-techies; and they decided to address a basic need of India's population – access to affordable, uninterrupted, clean electricity.
In a highly fragmented sector – 4PEL has a strong, in-house operating team with end-to-end capabilities across financial structuring, design, turnkey execution and servicing of captive solar assets.
“We at 4PEL keep Customer Centricity at the core of our business: our industry experts work overtime to offer innovative financing models and customized design/execution solutions to meet the clients' exact energy requirement while keeping in mind space and construction specifications at their premises. 4PEL has leveraged technology to develop an IoT-based RMS (Remote Monitoring System) that enables its monitoring team as well as clients to track real-time performance and generation of solar plants. On the engineering front, the firm has developed a non-penetrative technology to mount panels over tin roofs.” adds Saif Dhorajiwala, Founder of Fourth Partner Energy.
Moreover, they are Asia's only Clean Energy firm backed by TPG Capital; Their Advisory Board is led by former US Secretary of State John Kerry and boasts of Solar City's (Tesla) Peter Rive.
“In July 2018, we raised our first big-ticket round – The Rise Fund, managed by TPG (Globally renowned Private Equity Fund with over $ 100 billion under management) made an equity investment of $ 70 million into Fourth Partner Energy. In addition to that, we have also raised project finance and debt from highly reputed Indian and international financial institutions. With this capital and a strong operating team encompassing deal origination, engineering, execution, O&M and financing, the company is now rapidly expanding its portfolio and well-poised to take a leadership position in India. Some of our earlier investors include Infuse Venture and the Chennai Angels. At 4PEL, fund-raising is a continuous process and exercise, in line with our expansion plans.” says Vikas Saluguti, Founder of Fourth Partner Energy.
The rooftop solar market in India has shown significant and steady traction in the past 5 years with a cumulative current capacity of about 3.9 GW. The commercial & industrial segment has shown most potential with over 70% of installed capacity – with states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan and UP leading the country in installed capacity.
India is undoubtedly amongst the better-performing countries globally in terms of adopting solar power, but the rate of growth is not nearly enough to achieve the 40 GW rooftop target for 2022.
To try and achieve the maximum possible of this target, it is imperative that instead of working in silos – policymakers, DISCOM/utility companies, financiers, developers, clients, tax authorities and all other stakeholders work in tandem.
Their revenue CAGR for the last 5 years has been 113% and their target is to grow it by another 10x in the next 4 years. For FY20, they have a pipeline of over 350MW, out of which they expect at least 40% of orders from existing clients. Their foray into open access, international markets and other related growth areas of distributed energy will further cement their leadership position in the market. They also intend to foray into the Electric Vehicle charging infrastructure segment, in coming months.
Some of their marquee clients from various industries are Bharathi Cements, HUL, Ferrero, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Walmart, D-Mart, Raymond, Schneider Electric, Lupin, Glenmark, Mars, Bridgestone, Nilkamal, TCS, Skoda, Indian Railways, Nagpur Metro, BSNL, Indian Oil.
