R-Power sees eight-fold capacity rise in 2 years

Reliance Power is planning to commission its entire portfolio of projects by 2017, which would be around 35,000 Mw. At at the company’s annual general meeting today, Chairman Anil Ambani said it had embarked on a fast-track implementation of its huge portfolio, which include three ultra mega power projects (UMPPs).

“Over the next 24 months, we will rapidly accelerate the pace of new capacity addition, to leapfrog from the current 600 Mw to eight times that number, at over 5,000 Mw. This pace will intensify even further in 2013,” said Ambani.

R-Power started power generation this year, as it commissioned the first phase of its 1,200- Mw Rosa Power Project, in Uttar Pradesh. It also started the construction of a 2,400 Mw gas-based power project at Samalkot, Andhra Pradesh, to be commissioned in two years.

The company achieved financial closure for 10,000 Mw in over a year. It raised around Rs 50,000 crore to fund two UMPPs by the company, at Sasan and Krishnapatnam.

In addition to power, the company is active in coal mining. Two of its power projects, Sasan and Tilaiya, have captive coal mines. The reserves are over two billion tonnes. “It can potentially support the generation of 20,000 Mw of clean thermal power every year for 25 years, future-proofing our growth strategy,” said Ambani.

The company said it could also use gas from coal bed methane to generate yet another 2,000 Mw. RNRL, which was merged into Reliance Power this year, has coal-bed methane blocks in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

RPower will hire more people to support these rapid growth plans. The company plans to appoint 2,000 engineers over the next year for its various projects. “We will increase the total number of employees from 2,000 to 10,000 in the next five years, including those working at construction sites,” said J P Chalasani, the chief executive officer.