NTPC to hive renewable arm and list it soon, plans to add 60 Gw capacity

Firm has not added thermal capacity in the last five years, is evaluating if renewable energy will be enough for demand.

State-owned thermal power behemoth, NTPC Limited would hive off its renewable arm and take it public, as it aims to add 60 Gw of renewable capacity by 2030.

Speaking at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance summit in Delhi, Gurdeep Singh, Chairman & managing director, NTPC Ltd said, "We should not focus on one way of raising funds. We want to soon go to public for raising funds."

NTPC, India's largest power generating company, recently announced that it will set up 60 Gw of renewable energy capacity comprising of solar and wind power by 2032. The target was 30 Gw earlier.

Singh said the company has not added thermal capacity in the last five years and they are evaluating if it won't be needed in future too and renewable energy will be enough to meet the demand.

"NTPC would add 7-8 Gw renewable every year. We would rather be exceeding our target of 60GW," he said.

NTPC incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary for its renewable energy projects in October 2020 called NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd.

Singh said blended finance could be used for financing the capacity addition. He further said, "It's not imperative that NTPC will own all the renewable assets. We will enable projects as well."

NTPC builds renewable projects under two heads – EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) mode, in which it participates in tenders floated by the Centre and states and constructs on its own. The other is developer mode, where it awards renewable projects to private companies and procures power to sell to states. Under the developer mode, 4 Gw projects are operational and tenders for close to 3 Gw would be finalised soon.

Over the next decade, NTPC’s energy basket will see thermal portfolio fall to 70 per cent from 90 per cent and that of renewable sources increase to 25 per cent from miniscule 1.7 per cent right now, according to the company's presentation to investors.

Apart from solar and wind power projects, NTPC is also looking to invest is green hydrogen and green methanol – cleaner fuels that are manufactured at units powered by renewable energy. Sources said NTPC has already started a pilot of green methanol near its Ramagundam thermal power plant in Telangana, using carbon capture technology.

The company recently issued a global tender for procuring 1Gw grid scale battery storage systems.

The current total installed capacity of NTPC stands at 66 Gw. Out of this, thermal (coal+gas) is 61 Gw, hydro 3.7 Gw, solar is one Gw and balance is wind.