Hindustan Cleanenergy Limited has embarked on major expansion plan that will see the company heading towards an installed capacity of over 500 mw of solar power generation farms by year-end and one gigawatt (1000 mw) by 2016.

Hindustan Cleanenergy is part of Hindustan Power Projects Limited (formerly Moser Baer Projects), a Blackstone investee company.

To fund this expansion plan, the company is sewing up plans to enter the capital market. “The company will consider an initial public offer during the year to fuel the expansion plans, though the quantum of offering has not yet been decided,” Rajya Wardhan Ghei, Chief Executive Officer of Hindustan Cleanenergy, said.

Speaking to a group of journalists at the 30 mw solar farm in Gunthawada village about 180 km from Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Ghei said the company has thus far invested about Rs 5,500 crore which has resulted in implementation of an installed capacity of 350 mw in India and abroad and enough to take the capacity past the 500 mw mark by December 2014.

The company now has a pipeline of 250 mw and expects to implement about 150 to 200 mw by December taking its capacity past the 500 mw mark by the year end. It is planning to invest another Rs 5500 crore to take the capacity of solar power generation farms past the one giga watt (1000 mw) by 2016, Ghei told Business Line .

The Gunthawada project, a 30-mw single location farm set up on a 468 acre site in 2011 was the single largest plant in Asia when implemented. The project has a long-term power purchase agreement with the Gujarat State electricity entity.

Of the 350 mw installed so far, about 120 mw solar capacity is in overseas locations at Germany, Italy, the UK and Japan. In the expansion process now underway, about 100 mw capacity at advanced stage of implementation will be added within couple of months. Of this, about 50 mw is coming up in Gujarat and the rest in other States, including Madhya Pradesh, Ghei explained.

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