TotalEnergies and India’s Adani Group form joint venture for solar and wind assets

The company will be equally owned by Adani Group and the French energy giant

TotalEnergies headquarters in La Defense district outside Paris. The French oil giant will invest $300 million in equity in its joint venture with Adani to support development. Reuters

France’s TotalEnergies and a subsidiary of India’s Adani Group have agreed to form a joint venture comprising solar and wind power assets with a capacity of 1,050 megawatts.

The portfolio of the new venture, equally owned by the two companies, will include operational projects as well as assets under construction or in the development phase, TotalEnergies said on Wednesday.

Adani Green Energy will contribute the assets to the new company, while TotalEnergies will invest $300 million in equity to support their development.

“TotalEnergies has been developing, notably through AGEL, its presence in the Indian renewable power market, a very interesting market by its size and growth and the early development of a merchant market,” said Patrick Pouyanne, TotalEnergies’ chairman and chief executive.

“This new joint venture with AGEL will enable us to speed up our development through direct access to a large portfolio of assets.”

TotalEnergies holds a 50 per cent stake in Adani Total Private and a 37.4 per cent stake in Adani Total Gas, which develops distribution networks to supply piped natural gas.

The European energy major also picked up a 20 per cent stake in Adani Green Energy in 2021. Before that, TotalEnergies formed a 50-50 joint venture with the renewable energy company in 2020 to operate solar projects.

“We are delighted to extend our long-term partnership with TotalEnergies in AGEL. The investment will further strengthen the pivotal role played by AGEL in India’s glide path to decarbonisation,” said Gautam Adani, Adani Group chairman.

The completion of the deal will depend on regulatory approvals.

This month, Adani Group said its financial status remained unaffected despite “misleading” reports, in its latest rebuttal to a report from Hindenburg Research in January.

The Ahmedabad-based conglomerate has “rebounded strongly since the release of a short-selling report in January 2023", it said.

The Hindenburg report accused the Adani Group of stock manipulation and improper use of offshore tax havens, as well as raising concerns about its high level of debt. Adani Group has vigorously denied all the allegations.

In February, TotalEnergies said its exposure to Adani Group was limited to $3.1 billion, representing about 2.4 per cent of the company's capital employed.

“TotalEnergies has not performed any re-evaluation in its accounts of its stakes in the listed entities ATGL [Adani Total Gas] and AGEL in relation to the increase in their stock values,” the company said at the time.

TotalEnergies' investments in Adani Group companies were undertaken in “full compliance” with Indian laws and the company's internal governance policy, it said.