PayU India slashes its electricity emissions, powering India's rural financial inclusion with new climate finance mechanism

• PayU India is providing climate finance for projects with an installed capacity of over 390 KWp for 220 villages across India using Distributed Renewable Energy Certificates (D-RECs), accounting to a reduction in emissions from 89% of its electricity consumption

MUMBAI, India, June 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As momentum for greater corporate climate action and a just transition grows, PayU has shown its commitment to sustainability and financial inclusion across India by procuring Distributed Renewable Energy Certificates (D-RECs) from high-impact solar projects electrifying rural banks across the country.

D-RECs are an innovative climate finance instrument that are accelerating the energy transition, increasing local clean electricity supply, boosting transparency, and transforming corporate green energy procurement. D-RECs have a key role to play in India. Due to erratic power supplies, banking in rural areas can often be a difficult if not an impossible affair for many rural communities in India, with one-fifth of Indian adults reportedly not having a bank account.

E-Hands Energy, a Chennai-based provider of renewable energy solutions in rural India, recently completed a programme providing solar solutions to over 920 rural banks in India, helping bring financially excluded rural Indians into the formal banking system by ensuring the banks remained operational throughout the day despite regular power cuts. The D-RECs purchased by PayU will be certifying the renewable electricity generated by a selection of these rural banking renewable energy projects, supporting financial inclusion across the country.

D-RECs extend the impact of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) - a widely used market instrument - to smaller projects with limited connection to the grid and/or limited access to affordable finance, such as E-Hands Energy's banking programme. By purchasing D-RECs to settle 89% of PayU India's electricity consumption, the company is providing climate finance for further E-Hands Energy renewable energy projects with an installed capacity of over 390 KWp for 220 villages across India. These projects will displace polluting grid and off-grid energy generation, such as diesel generators and grief-based electricity, from across India.

The D-REC Initiative, the secretariat leading the management of the D-REC, has developed an open technology ledger in close collaboration with the International REC (I-REC) Standard. This gives buyers like PayU confidence in the origination of their certificates, producing rigorous metrics for corporate reporting against renewable energy procurement targets.

Mohit Gopal, COO at PayU India, said: "D-RECs offer an innovative and verifiable platform to accelerate affordable and clean energy access for underserved communities of India. As part of the Prosus' family of companies, our multi-year partnership with the D-REC Initiative shows our commitment to transition to a greener economy that is not only inclusive, but offers a reliable banking experience to rural Indians, bringing more people into the fold of the organised financial services sector."

Raghuraman Chandrasekaran, founder and CEO of E-Hands Energy, said: "The monetisation of our projects via DRECs are extremely important for us, as we can now accelerate the deployment of solar to more rural sites with the help of DRECs sold to reduce our capital expenditure on setting up new financial inclusion projects in the future."

PayU India is actively committed to sustainability and driving positive change through responsible business practices. The company has a comprehensive sustainability strategy that covers multiple initiatives. By making a conscious shift to recycled paper products, for an annual consumption of approximately 0.5 tons, PayU achieved a marked reduction in energy (31%), water waste (53%) and solid waste (39%). By moving to Green Garbage Bags, PayU has saved almost 2 tonnes of plastic waste and 1 kg of carbon emission per kg of a garbage bag. The company's annual CO2 emission saving was reduced by 1.35 tonnes by transitioning to EV vehicles, and by 31.68 tonnes using glass bottles.

About D-REC:

D-REC is a new type of energy attribute certificate that bridges corporate sustainable finance from multinationals to the distributed renewable energy sector in emerging markets. This catalyses new capital to provide access to affordable clean energy (SDG7).  By focusing on distributed renewable energy projects in communities with energy poverty, D-RECs go further than traditional renewable energy certificates, as they provide a direct link to positive social development and clean energy additionality.

The D-REC Initiative is led by South Pole and Powertrust, with support from Shell Foundation, Good Energies Foundation, Signify Foundation, GIZ-develoPPP, the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), International Finance Corporation (IFC), British International Investment (BII), USAID and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). D-REC will become a fully independent not-for-profit entity in 2023.

You can find about more about D-RECs here: https://drecs.org/

About PayU:

PayU, India's leading online payment solutions provider, is regulated under the Reserve Bank of India and has advanced solutions to meet the digital payment needs of the Indian market. PayU India aims to create a full-stack digital financial services platform to serve all (tapped and untapped) financial needs of customers (merchants, banks and consumers) through technology.

PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology. PayU is one of the leading payment gateways in India & has empowered 5 lakh+ businesses, including leading enterprises, e-commerce giants and SMBs. It enables businesses to collect digital payments across 150+ online payment methods such as Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Net Banking, EMIs, BNPL, QR, UPI, Wallets, and more. It is a preferred partner in the affordability ecosystem, offering the maximum coverage of issuers & easy to implement integrations across card-based EMIs, pay later options and new-age cardless EMIs. PayU offers merchants best in industry success rates while ensuring a seamless checkout experience.

About E-Hands Energy:

E-Hands Energy is in the business of providing clean energy access to people in remote areas of rural India who are off the country's electricity grid, since 2010. With over 900 installations across India, E-Hands Energy is one of the very few companies in India to offer both solar and wind based renewable energy hybrid solutions. are among the chosen few, globally, for seed funding by ERM's Low Carbon Enterprise Fund (LCEF). E-Hands Energy has been rated as one of the five most promising companies in India by New Venture India, an independent body monitoring and evaluating upcoming companies in decentralised clean energy.

You can find out more about E-Hands Energy here: http://www.ehandsenergy.in/

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