SUSI Partners To Build Rooftop Solar PV Portfolio In Southeast Asia

SUSI Partners, through SAETF, has set up a joint venture for the buildout of rooftop solar PV assets in partnership with Singapore-based developer Entoria Energy. The joint venture will give SUSI exclusive investment rights to Entoria’s Southeast Asian project pipeline, initially focussing on Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Rooftop solar photovoltaic installations at manufacturing plants, shopping malls, industrial parks, and other large buildings are becoming an ever more attractive proposition for commercial and industrial off-takers in Southeast Asia looking for ways to decrease their exposure to rising energy prices and grid reliability issues. SUSI and Entoria intend to meet this increasing demand by offering C&I customers solar panel installations on their rooftops at no extra cost to them and selling the power generated to them at prices below the grid tariff, leading to direct cost savings.

Given the region’s fast growth both in terms of population and economic output, Southeast Asia has a much greater demand for additional power generation capacity than more developed regions. Thanks to shorter rollout times than conventional power plants and the substantial cost decreases for solar power generation, solar PV is expected to be among the prime technologies serving this increasing power demand in the region. Rooftop installations are especially attractive at times of increasing energy prices given the technology’s ability to decrease end consumers’ electricity bills as well as their climate footprint.

SUSI Partners, through SAETF, targets sustainable energy infrastructure investments across Southeast Asia. For its first closing in late May 2021, SAETF received capital commitments from development banks AIIB and FMO, Nordic DFIs Norfund and Swedfund, as well as private sector institutional investors from Germany and Singapore. Fundraising continues with the final closing of the fund expected to occur in 2022.