New Delhi, Oct. 20 -- Avaada Electro, the solar module and cell manufacturing arm of Avaada Group, backed by Thailand's PTT Group and Brookfield, has sought to raise Rs.10,000 crore from an initial public offering (IPO), said two people aware of the development. The company has submitted a draft prospectus for the offer through a confidential filing. It aims to use the capital for expansion. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) introduced confidential IPO filings in November 2022 to provide companies-especially new-age and high-growth firms-more flexibility and privacy during the initial stages of the IPO process. Several green-energy companies have gone public of late. State-run NTPC Ltd's green energy arm NTPC Green Energy Ltd hit the stock markets last November with a Rs.10,000-crore offer. Waaree Energies, Vikram Solar, ACME Solar, Premier Energies, Saatvik Green and Alpex Solar are other green-power component makers that have gone public in the past year. Meanwhile, Inox Clean Energy, CleanMax and Juniper Energy have also filed for public listings, while Hero Future Energies and SAEL and others are looking to do so. "This money will be used for growth. The current capacity stands at 8.5GW (modules), which will be ramped up with further backward integration," said one of the two people mentioned above. Currently, the company has a module manufacturing capacity of 8.5GW and another 5.1GW is expected become operational in fiscal year 2027 (FY27). About 6GW of capacity is expected to be set up by January 2027 and another 6GW in the next fiscal year. Avaada Electro also plans to to enter the wafer and ingots business by FY28, diversifying further into the solar components space. Avaada Electro did not immediately respond to Mint's queries emailed on Saturday. India currently has 100GW of module manufacturing capacity and 25GW of cell manufactuuring capacity. In an interview to Mint earlier this month, Avaada Group chairman Vineet Mittal said the group's module manufacturing arm plans to develop indigenous ingot-to-solar module manufacturing capacity starting FY28. "Avaada wants to play the full value chain energy security solution. Our vision is that we will convert sand into glass, then we will convert polysilicon into ingot, ingot into wafer, wafer into cell and cell into module, as part of the sand-to-molecule philosophy," he said. Avaada Group had raised the largest equity round in India's renewable energy space in 2023, when it secured $1.3 billion from Brookfield's Energy Transition Fund and Thailand's GPSC, a subsidiary of the PTT Group. GSPC holds a nearly 43% stake in Avaada Energy, the group's renewable energy arm. With diversified operations across renewable energy generation, solar component manufacturing, green fuel production and storage projects, Avaada is Mittal's second innings in green energy after Tata Power bought the entire 1.1GW renewable energy portfolio of Welspun Energy Pvt. Ltd for $1.4 billion in 2016....