SJVN, a power generation joint venture of the Central and Himachal Pradesh governments, has drawn up a ₹40,000-crore investment plan to ramp up capacity to 10,000 MW by 2022. Bloomberg TV India caught up with SJVN CMD Ramesh Narain Misra to get an insight on the expansion plan.

Can you tell us about your capacity expansion plans in the renewable energy sector?

We have already entered solar and wind power. We are expecting that by FY 2017 we should be able to add around 200-300 MWs of power. We have given a commitment to add 1,000MW of power from solar and wind in the next five years. We will go on scaling up our efforts in this direction.

Can you give some details of the expansion plan for your entire energy portfolio?

We have got a portfolio of hydro, thermal, solar and wind energy. By 2022, we expect to make this a 10,000 MW company and for this we may have to add some 6,000 MW of power from hydro, thermal, wind and solar. We will require around ₹40,000 crore, of which about 30 per cent will be equity and the rest will be through loans. The equity will be financed through our internal resources.

What is the average tariff you are looking at from the upcoming projects?

As far as the hydropower projects are concerned, the average tariff will be ₹4-6. And for the thermal power project, the tariff would be ₹3.50 or so. In case of wind and solar, that will be, say, a little over ₹5.

Will you be looking to raise funds for the expansion and what would be your debt levels then?

For the next two-three years we will not require any fund-raising for the equity portion. Thereafter, if required, we will go to the market. But we are generating good revenues from our present power stations. We don’t find any problem in raising loans because our balance sheet is very sound.

What is the progress at the 66MW Dhaulasidh project which has been stalled since 2008? We know the cost of the project has also gone up to almost ₹1,002 crore…

The cost of the Dhaulasidh project is around ₹853 crore. We have already received environment clearance for it. Because it is definitely a high-cost project and the tariff is also quite high, we are looking for someone with whom we can have a commitment for power purchase.