MUMBAI (Reuters) - SunEdison Inc is looking to sell all of its Indian assets or find partners for them, the Mint newspaper reported on Monday, after one of its publicly listed units last week said the company was at "substantial risk" of bankruptcy.
Heavily indebted SunEdison has several solar plants in India and last year won an auction to sell solar power in the country at what was then a record-low tariff.
The auction was part of government efforts to raise solar energy capacity by five times by 2020 to end chronic power shortages.
India does not have the know-how or money to develop large-scale solar projects, making it reliant on foreign firms such as SunEdison, compatriot First Solar Inc and China's Trina Solar Ltd.
"Nearly 500 megawatts of Indian projects are funded and in are in construction," Pashupathy Gopalan, SunEdison Asia-Pacific head said in an email to Reuters. "As a business model, we continue to pursue equity partnerships in our projects to the extent allowed by PPA (power purchase agreements with buyers)."
SunEdison runs solar plants in India with capacities of about 450 megawatts (MW). It has another 800 MW of capacity under development and won a tender for a 500 MW plant in Andhra Pradesh.
The company has already ended a $4 billion agreement struck last year with India's Adani Group for a factory to make solar cells and panels in the country.
On Friday, The Wall Street Journal said the U.S. solar firm planned to file for bankruptcy protection in coming weeks, citing people familiar with the matter.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Christopher Cushing)
