The investor roundtable held on 6th Oct in Washington – E-mobility sector
An investor roundtable concentrating on the e-mobility sector in India was held in Washington on October 6, 2022 on the side lines of the US-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (USISCEP). The USISCEP meeting was held the next day between the Indian delegation led by Sh. Hardeep Puri, Union Minister of Natural Gas and Housing & Urban Affairs, India and Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy, USA.
The roundtable was a two-hour event and was organised by United State Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) South Asia Regional Energy Partnership (SAREP) program. The session was attended by representatives from Government of India (GoI), USAID as well as by investors like US DFC, IFC, Petronas, Accion, Lowercarbon capital, Red blue, Village capital and Union Squared ventures.
Sh. Rajnath Ram, Adviser (Energy), NITI Aayog, provided GoI’s perspective on the policies, schemes/programmes and plans related to e-mobility. Jefferey Haeni, DDI Bureau, Global Lead – Energy, Infrastructure and Green Cities, USAID delivered the welcome remarks which was followed by presentations from Apurva Chaturvedi, Senior Clean Energy Specialist, Indo-Pacific Office, USAID, and Namrata Mukherjee, Deputy Chief of Party – Trade and Investments, SAREP. This was followed by the moderated Q&A session with the investors. During the Q&A session, investors discussed issues around high cost of finance in the e-mobility sector and shared their experience of investing in India. They also highlighted concerns such as tax structure, residual value of the battery, lack of charging infrastructure, absence of domestic platforms for investing, risks in existing contractual framework for e-buses, and financing of fleets etc.
The Q&A session was moderated by Tatyana Marshall, Senior Director, RTI International, and Sebastien Deschler, General Counsel, CrossBoundary. Sarah Lawson, Deputy Division Lead delivered the vote of thanks.
Currently, SAREP is engaged with NITI Aayog in structuring a dedicated financing facility, involving creation of multiple financing instruments for mobilising investments in e-mobility, and with Invest India for facilitating investments into this space. With this roundtable, SAREP has commenced its longer-term engagement with global investors, which shall ultimately result in mobilising investments in the e-mobility space in India.
