The US-based Carbon Credit Capital proposes to launch a $100-million India-specific fund this year to invest in renewable energy projects.

“We would start with $100 million this year and will eventually increase it to $500 million,” said Ms Olivia Fussell, President, Carbon Credit Capital.

The carbon financing firm will invest in a range of projects across all renewable technologies such as solar and biomass among others.

Ms Fussell said the company is in talks with the US-based private individual investors for raising the fund, which will be launched this year.

“We may complement it with multilateral fund. We are in initial talks with International Finance Corporation,” she added.

Opportunity

The company sees big opportunity in India for its technologies and solutions, where the industry is looking to reduce emissions and improve efficiencies.

Currently, it is working with some eight clients in India.

“We are in talks with another 12 companies including large coal power plants to deploy our emission reduction methodologies,” Ms Fussell said.

A privately held firm in the US, Carbon Credit Capital helps Indian firms get their projects registered with the clean development mechanism under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change to earn carbon credits.

The company buys carbon credits from the Indian firms on behalf of its clients in the European Union.

India is the second largest supplier of carbon credits in the global carbon market.

The new capacity addition in the renewable energy sector is expected to drive the issuance of carbon credits to 246 million units by 2012 from 72 million in 2009, according to CRISIL Research.