Welspun Energy will complete its 130 MW solar photovoltaic project in Madhya Pradesh this August, close to a year earlier than originally scheduled, Vineet Mittal, Co-Founder and Managing Director, told Business Line recently.

Welspun Energy won last year the right to put up the plant and sell the power to Madhya Pradesh’s state-owned electricity distribution utility in a competitive bidding process, quoting a tariff of Rs 8.05 a kWhr.

Mittal said that Welspun completed the financial closure for the project only in February.

Additional capacity

The entire project, therefore, would have taken less than six months to complete, he said, adding that the speed of execution set a benchmark for Welspun itself.

Welspun Energy today owns solar power producing assets worth 111 MW — in Gujarat and Rajasthan. However, in the current year, the company would add 300 MW of capacity, Mittal said.

This 300 MW would include the 130-MW in Madhya Pradesh, but would not include the 60-MW plant to come up in Tamil Nadu, for which the company has received the letter of intent from the Tamil Nadu distribution utility, Tangedco.

Welspun has previously said that it would invest about Rs 1,000 crore in Chhattisgarh to put up 100 MW of solar capacity, but Mittal said that there had been some delays in signing the power purchase agreement.

He said all the solar projects the company would put up will be under PPAs with utilities.

In addition to solar, Welspun will add 140 MW of wind power capacity in the current financial year, Mittal said. Today, Welspun has 20 MW of wind power capacity.

ramesh.m@thehindu.co.in

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