SunSource Energy founder-led trio plans ₹10,000 crore cleantech push

Renewable energy investor Kushagra Nandan, who cofounded SunSource Energy in 2011 and biofuel firm REnergy Dynamics (RED) in 2024, has launched a new clean-technology company, LNK Energy, along with investor Varun Karad and Paritosh Ladhani, joint managing director of SLMG Beverages, India’s largest Coca-Cola bottler. 

The trio plans to invest around ₹10,000 crore over the next five years in setting up a solar equipment man­u­facturing factory in Maharashtra, and later expand operations into green fuels, including green hyd­ro­gen, renewable energy development, and energy storage. 

The first project involves a 6 gigawatt solar cell and module manufacturing plant with integrated ingot and wafer facilities at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in Maharashtra. 

The company, incorporated last year, has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the Maharashtra government for the project. 

Over time, LNK Energy will also manufacture key adjacencies such as junction boxes, battery platforms, and related energy storage components, supporting the development of a robust domestic clean energy ecosystem, the three investors told Business Standard in an interview. 

In the long run, the plan is to build a renewable energy generation portfolio as an independent power producer and through hybrid open-access solutions, integrating storage, solar, and other forms of renewable energy to create a fully integrated platform spanning manufacturing, fuels, and operating assets. 

“In the first phase of setting up the plant in Maharashtra, we plan to invest ₹1,000 crore. We have already received approvals from lenders — mostly domestic — to raise ₹700 crore for the project, while the remaining ₹300 crore will be infused as equity,” Ladhani said. The broader ₹10,000 crore investment will be deployed over time across the manufacturing and clean energy platform. 

The investors said the time is ripe for new-age manufacturing to be integrated with renewable energy technologies and long-term patient capital in India, starting with solar manufacturing and batteries and eventually moving into green fuels. 

“We have been working on this idea for one and a half years and have been working with a technology team from Germany for its expertise in setting up solar cell manufacturing. We also plan to participate in the solar production-linked incentive scheme,” Nandan said. 

Asked whether the ongoing consolidation in the solar power sector makes this the right time to commit capital, Nandan said the government has launched several programmes to promote domestic solar manufacturing, including the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers, which provides confidence.