Goldman Sachs to invest in Japanese renewables

• 10 years ago (2013-05-23)
• Junior Isles

Asia 848 North America 998 Nuclear 640 Renewables 751

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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is looking to invest as much as $487 million (50 billion yen) into Japanese renewable energy projects over the next five years, the company has said.

The investment bank will buttress this investment with an extra 250 billion yen from loans and project-financing over the same period, to provide a total investment of 300 billion yen, according to Tokyo-based spokeswoman for Goldman, Hiroko Matsumoto.

Goldman Sachs’ interest in Japanese renewables is likely to have been piqued by the generous subsidies of offer in the last year. Japan has been offering feed-in tariff incentives to encourage renewables growth since July last year, as part of an attempt to offset the negative effects of the Fukushima nuclear-plant crisis on its nuclear energy programme.

“We believe that we can leverage our global expertise in investing in renewable energy in places such as the US and India, to help expand Japan’s renewable power capabilities,” co-head of GS merchant banking division in the Asia-Pacific, Ankur Sahu said.

Renewable energy has attracted significant recent interest from investors including billionaire Masayoshi Son’s Softbank Corp, financial-services company Orix Corp. and Japan’s biggest banks led by Mizuho Financial Group Inc.

Bloomberg estimates place Japan as potentially the largest solar market in the world after China during 2013 year.

Commercial and utility-scale projects were already anticipated to boost Japanese solar installations to a range of 6.1 GW to 9.4 GW in 2013, exceeding previous forecasts of 3.2 GW to 4 GW, and this latest news is likely to push installation even higher.

Kyocera Corp., Sharp Corp. and Suntech Power Japan Corp. all stand to benefit from Goldman Sachs’ investment as they are as Japan’s primary producers of solar panels for residential and industrial use.