Brookfield will invest up to $600 million in ACME Cleantech Ventures, marking the global investment firm's entry into India's green molecules sector and its first move into the same business line in the Middle East.
The Deal
Brookfield announced on Thursday that it will invest up to $600 million in ACME Cleantech Ventures, a UK based privately held entity within the ACME Group. The capital will fund the development and construction of ACME's pipeline of green molecule projects across India and the Middle East. Brookfield is deploying the money through its Brookfield Global Transition Fund strategy, a vehicle focused specifically on net zero carbon investment opportunities.
Nawal Saini, managing partner and head of energy for South Asia and the Middle East at Brookfield, said the investment marks the firm's entry into the green molecules sector in the region and combines its global scale and institutional capital with ACME's operating capabilities.
What are Green Molecules
Green molecules is an industry term for fuels and chemicals such as green ammonia and green hydrogen, produced using renewable electricity instead of fossil fuels. ACME's flagship product is green ammonia, made by combining hydrogen split from water using solar or wind power with nitrogen taken from the air. Industries use it as a cleaner input for fertiliser production, shipping fuel and industrial decarbonisation, in place of ammonia made from natural gas or coal.
ACME's Existing Footprint
ACME's green molecules business already has an operational green ammonia facility in Bikaner, Rajasthan. The company is also advancing an international green ammonia project in Duqm, Oman, and setting up new facilities in Odisha under a Green Ammonia Purchase Agreement with the Solar Energy Corporation of India.
Beyond these projects, ACME has built a set of partnerships that extend its reach:
- A joint venture with IHI Corporation of Japan
- An offtake contract with Mitsubishi Gas Chemicals
- An offtake partnership with Yara International of Norway
- Supply arrangements with Indian fertiliser companies including IFFCO, Paradeep Phosphates Limited, Coromandel International Limited and Indorama India Private Limited
Manoj Upadhyay, chairman of ACME Group, said the company aims to accelerate cost competitive decarbonisation and build a global platform serving customers in Asia, Europe and beyond. He added that ACME's project portfolio is underpinned by long term, bankable offtake contracts with blue chip counterparties in India and globally, which he said creates a foundation for large scale, sustainable cash flows over the long term.
The Policy Backdrop
ACME's Green Ammonia Purchase Agreement with the Solar Energy Corporation of India sits under the government's SIGHT programme, part of India's National Green Hydrogen Mission. The Union Cabinet approved that mission in January 2023 with an outlay of ₹19,744 crore, targeting five million tonnes of green hydrogen production a year by 2030 alongside roughly 125 gigawatts of new renewable capacity to power it. That policy push, aimed at cutting India's reliance on imported fossil fuel feedstock and positioning the country as a hydrogen and ammonia exporter, is the backdrop against which ACME has been signing its offtake deals and building its Odisha facility.
Brookfield's Scale in India
Brookfield brings more than $1 trillion in assets under management globally. In India specifically, its energy portfolio includes roughly 50 gigawatts of wind and solar assets that are either already operating or in the development pipeline, giving it an existing renewable energy base to build on as it moves into green molecules.
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Why this Investment Matters
Green ammonia and green hydrogen projects are capital intensive and depend on long term offtake agreements to become bankable, since lenders and investors need confidence that the fuel produced will actually be bought at a workable price. An offtake contract is essentially a long term purchase commitment, and it is what allows a project developer to raise financing against future sales rather than needing all the capital upfront. ACME's existing offtake contracts with companies such as Yara, Mitsubishi Gas Chemicals and several Indian fertiliser majors gave it exactly that kind of demand visibility, which likely made it an attractive partner for a large institutional investor like Brookfield.
For India's broader decarbonisation push, the deal adds fresh foreign capital to a sector the government has been actively courting through the SIGHT programme and its associated purchase agreements. It also signals that global infrastructure investors see India and the Middle East as a connected green molecules corridor rather than two separate markets, given ACME's simultaneous build out in Rajasthan, Odisha and Oman.
No specific timeline for deploying the full $600 million, or a breakdown between the India and Middle East pipelines, was disclosed in Thursday's announcement.
