NEW DELHI (Reuters) - SB Energy, a three way joint venture of Japan's SoftBank Group, Bharti Enterprises and Foxconn Technology Co Ltd, has won an order to develop a solar plant in India, marking SoftBank's first foray into renewable energy there.
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set an ambitious target to raise India's solar capacity five fold to 100,000 MW by 2022. U.S.-based SunEdison already runs solar power plants in India.
State-run power producer NTPC awarded the contract to SB Energy in a tender floated to develop the 350 megawatts (MW) solar power plant which will have a fixed tariff of 4.63 rupees/kWh for the next 25 years, a SoftBank statement said.
India, the world's third-largest carbon emitter, is dependant on coal for about two-thirds of its energy needs and has pledged to mine more of the fuel while also promising to increase clean energy generation.
(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; editing by Mayank Bhardwaj and William Hardy)