Mizuho leads Japanese group in building Indian solar plant

Japanese firms will help India achieve an eightfold expansion in sun-powered capacity.

A group led by Mizuho will build a solar plant in Gujarat that could generate as much as 200 megawatts.

It will cost as much as 30 billion yen or $325 million, said Masako Shiono, a spokeswoman of the Mizuho Financial Group.

Mizuho’s corporate lending unit signed a memorandum of understanding with Gujarat’s government in January, she added.

Clean-energy investors are looking to India as government incentives such as lower tax rates and cheaper raw materials drive down costs. The country, seeking to cut chronic power shortages as coal and gas fall short, released a draft policy in December targeting 9,000 megawatts of grid-connected solar plants by 2017, more than eight times its current capacity.

Kyocera Corp. may supply solar panels to the Mizuho project.

Several companies are considering taking part, according to Shiono, who said the plant’s capacity may be expanded to 2,200 megawatts.

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