Rahul Agrawal coverage in The Wall Street Journal: Why Green Energy Makes More Sense With Each Price Shock

Rahul Agrawal, Head of Southeast Asia Energy at Actis, was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal to explore why recent geopolitical shocks are reinforcing the long-term case for renewable energy and storage, particularly in markets seeking to reduce exposure to volatile imported fuel supplies.

In the article, Rahul highlights how the current energy disruption has sharpened the focus on the strategic role of projects such as MTerra Solar in the Philippines. The piece notes that, as concerns around fuel shortages intensified, the Philippine government moved quickly to understand how additional solar capacity could be brought online and accelerated approvals for MTerra Solar’s energisation.

The piece also explores why the economics of solar and battery storage have shifted materially in recent years. Rahul explains that, even before the latest rise in imported LNG prices, MTerra Solar was expected to deliver 13 hours of power a day at a cost marginally below LNG-based generation, reflecting the significant decline in battery costs and the increasing competitiveness of integrated solar-plus-storage solutions.

The piece concludes by reinforcing that each successive price shock further underlines the strategic importance of domestically available, lower-cost and more resilient clean energy infrastructure.

Click here to read the full article online and read on below for a snippet of Rahul’s commentary.

Rahul Agrawal, Head of Southeast Asia Energy at Actis, commented:

“This is not theory. This is actually happening on the ground now.”

“In 2022, solar-plus-battery paired together was still more expensive than LNG-based power. In the last, I would say, three years, the decline in battery prices has been quite phenomenal.”

Disclaimer

The case study above is presented for informational purposes only and was selected to demonstrate the type of investments that Actis will seek to make. A prospective investor should not rely on the included transaction characteristics when making a decision on whether to invest. There can be no guarantee that transactions with similar characteristics will be available to Actis.