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N. Ramakrishnan

Chennai, May 13 Gujarat Paguthan Energy Corporation’s (GPEC) wind energy projects in Gujarat and Karnataka will get a loan of up to Rs 445 crore from Asian Development Bank.

According to reliable sources, the bank has given an in-principle approval for the loan which will be used to set up wind farms at Samana in Gujarat and Saundatti in Karnataka totalling 183 MW. The loan will have a maturity of 13 years from the date of the first disbursement.

GPEC, which is fully owned by the CLP Group (formerly China Light & Power), will bring in Rs 198 crore as equity for the projects and other co-lenders will provide loans of Rs 364 crore.

According to information available on ADB’s Web site, the Samana project is part of a large wind energy farm being developed by Enercon (India) Ltd, a leading manufacturer of wind turbines, for GPEC and other power producers. Enercon is developing the Saundatti project in Belgaum district exclusively for GPEC.

The loan to the wind energy project of GPEC will be the second such project that ADB will be funding in India. In 2007, it approved a Rs 350-crore loan for a 100-MW wind energy project of Tata Power Company in Maharashtra.

GPEC owns and operates a 655-MW gas-fired project at Bharuch in Gujarat. The Samana project in Jamnagar district will be fully completed by January 2009, with some turbines being commissioned in April 2008 and others getting installed in stages. The Saundatti project is scheduled to start generating electricity in June 2009.

GPEC will sell the electricity generated by the Samana wind farm to the Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd, the State-owned electricity holding company in Gujarat. GPEC has a 20-year power purchase agreement with the power utility and will get a tariff of Rs 3.37 a kWh for the period of the agreement.

For the Karnataka project, GPEC will get a tariff of Rs 3.40 a kWh from the distribution companies for the first 10 years after which the State electricity regulatory commission will fix the tariff.

The Samana and Saundatti projects are the first of the large investments planned by the CLP group in India in the renewable energy sector, according to the sources.

CLP is also present in India through a company called Roaring40s, an equal joint venture with Hydro Tasmania of Australia. Roaring40s has set up a 50-MW wind farm in Maharashtra and has announced plans to have 250 MW of wind power capacity in India by 2010.

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