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Industrial power provider OPG Power Ventures plc, listed on the London Stock Exchange, plans to invest nearly Rs 3,000 crore on setting up thermal power plants in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat to increase its existing generation capacity to 750 MW by 2014.
Currently, the company has 113 MW of installed capacity, including an 80 MW coal-based plant, a 26 MW gas-based unit and a 7 MW waste heat recovery-based facility in Chennai.
As part of its expansion, it is now setting up a second coal-based 80 MW plant at Chennai, set to start production in three months, a third 80 MW plant, to go critical early next year, two plants of 80 MW each at other locations in TN, to start in 2014, and two plants of 150 MW each in Kutch, Gujarat, Mr Prashant Goyal, Director, said here on Friday.
For its capacity expansion, the company had already raised £120 million (Rs 960 crore) to fund the equity requirement for these projects. The company will invest Rs 1,600 crore at Bhadreshwar, near Gandhidham (Kutch), for the coal-based plant and the balance Rs 1,400 crore in Tamil Nadu, he said.
Mr Goyal said that all the necessary clearances have been obtained for these projects from the various authorities concerned.
For the 300 MW Bhadreshwar plant, the company has acquired 250 acres and is procuring machinery worth about Rs 900 crore from BHEL. This plant will start generating power in early 2015.
For its various thermal power plants, OPG Power will require 5 million tonnes of coal a year, for which it has tied up with Coal India Ltd and Indonesian suppliers, he said.
Unlike other major players, OPG Power has refrained from launching mega-capacity power plants and not signed any power purchase agreement so far with any party. “We started with smaller capacities due to water shortage in Tamil Nadu and have continued with the model elsewhere as it is less risky. Besides, we supply power only to industries and have not tied ourselves down through the PPAs to sell power at regulated price. This leaves us free to sell power at market price and to those who can pay.” It is also not dependent on any one type of fuel due to flexible technology it adopted.
Besides, the company has set up two solar power plants of 5 MW each in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan.
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