Torrent buys 25 Mw solar plants for Rs 163 cr from Balrampur Chini's SPV

Unit has long-term PPA in place with Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited for a period of 25 years

Torrent Power Ltd on Thursday announced a Rs 163 crore acquisition of 25 Mw solar power plants operated by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) of Blue Daimond Properties Private Limited and Balrampur Chini Mills Limited.

The Ahmedabad-based generation and distribution player has entered into a share purchase agreement (SPA) with the two companies for the acquisition of 100 per cent equity share capital of Visual Percept Solar Projects Private Limited, the said SPV.

The SPV operates the 25 Mw solar power unit in Gujarat with a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) in place with Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (GUVNL) for a period of 25 years. At an enterprise Value estimated at Rs 163 crore, the acquisition is subject to closing price adjustments, if any as well as customary conditions for transaction closure.

Currently, the 100 per cent equity shares in Visual Percept Solar Projects Private Limited are held by Blue Daimond Properties Private Limited and Balrampur Chini Mills Limited in a 55:45 ratio, respectively.

The integrated power utility of the diversified Torrent Group with group revenues of Rs 20,500 crore, Torrent Power is one of the largest companies in the country’s power sector with presence across the entire power value chain of generation, transmission and distribution.

Torrent Power currently has an aggregate installed generation capacity of about 3.9 GW, which consists largely of clean generation sources such as gas (2.7 Gw) and renewables (0.8 Gw). It also has a capacity of 0.7 GW of renewable energy plants under advanced stage of acquisition or under development, with which its renewable portfolio will increase to more than 1.5 GW and its total capacity will increase to about 4.6 Gw.

The company is also one of the largest players in power distribution and efficiently distributes nearly 14.5 billion units to over 3.7 million customers in the cities of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Surat, Dahej SEZ and Dholera SIR in Gujarat; Bhiwandi, Shil, Mumbra and Kalwa in Maharashtra; Agra in Uttar Pradesh and is in the process of taking over electricity distribution operations in the UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

Torrent Power share price on BSE fell by 1.12 per cent or Rs 5.75 per share to close at Rs 506.65 apiece on Thursday.