Reliance Venture, GE invest in AllGreen Energy

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Reliance Venture Asset Management along with an affiliate of GE has invested in the first round of funding of AllGreen Energy Ltd, a renewable energy firm in the biomass space. The deal would help AllGreen fund its first project will be located in Perundurai, Tamil Nadu. Though the deal size was not disclosed, it is reportedly pegged around Rs 60-70 crore.

The deal is the first investment by Reliance Venture Asset Management, the corporate venture capital arm of Reliance ADA Group.

Bangalore-based AllGreen builds biomass gasification power plants that utilize agricultural waste to generate power. Its first project in Tamil Nadu which will use three of GE's J620 Jenbacher gas engines, for a total capacity of 6.4 megawatts (MW). AllGreen intends to set up a capacity of 100 MW in biomass plant in the coming years.

AllGreen also said that it has structured its projects to make them economically viable. They include the Indian Institute of Science for the gasification technology; GE Jenbacher for engines; Tata Consulting Engineers for project evaluation; ITC for biomass feedstock supply and; SBI for project debt financing.

Its projects will have four revenue streams which are renewable power, charcoal (a natural byproduct of the gasification process), the waste heat generated from the engines to power cold storage facilities and the sale of carbon credits.

"We are using a gasification technology as opposed to most of the plants that use the combustion technology. The advantage of using gasification technology is that it is about 25- 30% more efficient. So for the same amount of biomass that you the put into the plant, you would be getting a lot more power," said Kamlesh Tejwani, Chairman and CEO, AllGreen.

Reliance Venture has invested in 15 companies which include Gradatim IT Ventures, Reverse Logistics Co., Tessolve Services, among others.

By: Madhav Chanchani