SunEdison has also secured a third party Right of First Offer (ROFO) for a further 1,918 MW of renewable projects. The pending deals are worth more than $1.4bn according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

SunEdison CEO Ahmad Chatila said: “We intend to act quickly to address the opportunity in emerging markets, where the majority of future global electric power infrastructure investments will be deployed.”

“Our announcement today is the first stage in our plan to move rapidly to capitalize on the opportunity to provide clean, renewable, cost-efficient power to the fast-growing emerging markets.”

Future of renewables

The company, which only recently expanded beyond solar for the first time, has concluded seven separate transactions, acquiring hydro, solar and wind projects in China, India, South Africa and South America.

To help fund its expansion, SunEdison has secured a $175m equity investment from Blackstone, Everstream and Altai, as well as a $362 million non-recourse acquisition facility from JPMorgan Chase Bank, Barclays, Citi and Morgan Stanley.

Investment in emerging markets has been buoyed recently by supportive policies and favourable climates. India has a plan to boosts its solar energy capacity by 33 times to 100GW by 2022, while China installed 37GW of solar in 2013 alone.

2014 also saw ‘record-breaking-growth’ for wind energy in China and Brazil.

UK growth

The transactions mark a period of prolonged growth for SunEdison, which announced in April a new UK portfolio with the capacity to power 30,000 homes per year.

The portfolio is comprised of eight large-scale solar farms across England and Wales, and the energy will be EDF under a 15 year power purchasing agreement (PPA).

The UK is now the world’s third largest market for utility-scale solar capacity, having leapfrogged India and Germany in a frantic first quarter of 2015.

Brad Allen

Action inspires action. Stay ahead of the curve with sustainability and energy newsletters from edie

Subscribe