Total announced on Thursday that it has acquired a 50% stake in Indian conglomerate Adani Group’s solar business for approximately US$510 million.

The French oil major and Adani Green Energy Limited will set up a joint venture that will count all of AGEL’s existing solar assets, which are spread over 11 states and have a cumulative capacity of more than 2.1GW.

Those plants each have “nearly” 25-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) in place with national and regional electricity distributors, according to a Total release.

Gautam Adani, Adani Group chairman, said in a separate release that the venture was “pivotal in our journey towards building the world’s largest solar power company by 2025 and the world’s largest renewable power company by 2030.”

Total said that it expects India’s renewables capacity to grow to 225MW by 2022.

The Indian government is angling for 175GW of capacity in the next two years, up from 81GW in 2019.

The French company noted that it expects to stay “ahead of new energy market trends” by ensuring that 15-20% of sales by 2040 are from its low-carbon businesses.

At the tail end of 2019, Adani sold a 25.1% stake in its subsidiary Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd (AEML) to Qatar Investment Authority for around INR 3,200 crore (US$450 million).

Last month, the firm won 700MW of solar-wind hybrid capacity in the western state of Maharashtra from AEML and 7MW capacity in a manufacturing-linked solar with another local developer Azure Power in a solar tender floated by the Solar Energy Corporation of India.

By Cecilia Keating