DUBAI: Dubai Group, the financial services arm of Dubai World, the Dubai government's investment company, has acquired a 40 percent stake in leading Indian wind turbine manufacturer Chiranjjeevi Wind Energy Ltd (CWEL).
"We are pleased to partner with India's CWEL as part of our continuous commitment to finding solutions towards a better future," Abdulhakeem Kamkar, chief executive of Dubai Investment Group, a subsidiary of Dubai Group, said in a statement here Monday.
"The world we live in is greatly impacted by global warming and we believe endorsing a project on renewable energy alternatives is the step in the right direction for mitigating environmental degradation."
Dubai Investment Group, which aims to build a diversified portfolio of assets in renewable energy, has made focused investments, through its subsidiary Dubai Ventures, over the past two years in the renewable energy sector across Asia, with exposure in direct renewable energy sources and upstream producers of raw material used in renewable energy, the company said in its statement.
"While CWEL will have a strong base in India, we intend to explore, along with CWEL, other regions, especially the Middle East and Africa, where there is potential to set up wind farms," Kamkar said.
Welcoming Dubai Group's move, CWEL chairman and managing director R.V.S Marimuthu said: "This has enabled us to create a platform for organic growth initiatives and compete globally."
Established in 1997, CWEL has a well-equipped factory in Puducherry.
The company recently signed a memorandum of understanding with two German companies - Frisia GmbH for acquiring the entire design, technology and intellectual property of 850 KW wind turbines, and EUROS for transfer of technology to manufacture rotor blades.
CWEL has already installed over 150 wind-turbine machines in India.
It recently received a $25-million order from India Globalization Capital for setting up a 24 MW wind farm in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
Dubai Investment Group has made several investments in Asian renewable energy projects.
These include biomass power plants, waste-to-energy plants, soya bean oil producer, as well as fertilizer and methane gas producers in China and crude palm oil kernel oil plantations in Malaysia and the Philippines.
