India’s industrial economy is scaling rapidly, but its energy equation is becoming increasingly complex. Rising electricity tariffs, grid instability, diesel dependence, and intensifying ESG scrutiny are
converging into a single reality: energy is no longer a background operating cost. It is now a strategic input that directly affects margins, competitiveness, and long-term planning.
Solar adoption across India’s commercial and industrial sector has grown steadily over the last decade. Yet intent alone has never been the main constraint. The more persistent challenge has been risk—particularly around long-term performance, capital deployment, and operational accountability. For many businesses, the question is no longer whether to adopt clean energy, but how to do so without absorbing risks beyond their core expertise.
Historically, industrial solar adoption has followed two dominant models: Capex-led ownership and Opex-based power purchase agreements. Each offers advantages, but both come with limitations.
Capex-led projects allow businesses to own assets, access incentives such as accelerated depreciation and GST input credits, and reduce long-term electricity costs. However, ownership also places the full burden of performance on the customer. Engineering, construction, and operations are often split across multiple counterparties. EPC contractors install and exit, while operations and maintenance are managed under limited contracts. If generation falls short, the financial impact sits entirely with the business, eroding savings over time.
Opex models, particularly PPAs, were designed to address these concerns. Under this structure, the developer finances, owns, and operates the system, while the customer pays only for electricity consumed. There is no upfront investment and limited operational exposure. However, this risk reduction comes with trade-offs. Businesses do not own the asset, cannot claim tax incentives, and give up long-term upside. Tariffs are fixed, flexibility is limited, and value capture is constrained.
This gap between ownership and accountability has led to a new approach: performance-linked solar financing.
Under this model, businesses retain full ownership of the solar asset and its economic benefits, while performance responsibility is contractually transferred to the developer. Provider revenues are linked to actual electricity generation rather than installed capacity, aligning incentives across the asset’s lifecycle.
Candi Solar’s performance-linked financing model is built around this principle. Customers own the system and benefit from accelerated depreciation and GST input credits, while Candi guarantees contracted generation and assumes responsibility for monitoring, maintenance, and performance delivery. If generation falls below agreed thresholds, the financial impact shifts to the developer.
For industrial customers, this structure combines the balance-sheet advantages of ownership with the certainty associated with Opex models, without forcing a trade-off between the two.
As energy volatility increases, business leaders are evaluating solar through a more sophisticated lens. Headline savings or simple payback periods are no longer sufficient. Decisions are increasingly driven by predictable long-term energy costs, risk-adjusted returns, and accountability if performance deviates. Performance-linked models allow solar to be assessed using familiar metrics such as levelised cost of energy, without requiring internal teams to manage engineering complexity.
Against this backdrop, Candi Solar, a Swiss-origin distributed clean energy platform operating across India and South Africa, has secured USD 58.5 million in financing from the International Finance Corporation, taking its total capital raised to over USD 200 million.
Today, Candi Solar manages more than 220 MWp of distributed solar capacity across India and South Africa, serving industrial customers across manufacturing, textiles, automotive, and allied sectors. These installations avoid approximately 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually and help businesses stabilise energy costs.
India’s industrial growth will depend not just on renewable access, but on systems that deliver consistent outcomes over time. Performance-linked financing enables businesses to participate in the clean energy transition without absorbing risks beyond core operations.
As Nishant Sood, Managing Director – India, Candi Solar, notes, this model “unlocks value through financial innovation by aligning performance risk, enabling businesses to benefit from solar ownership without bearing the operational and performance risks associated with owning a solar system.”
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